In Search Of Demons
by Ama no Tsuki
Summary: The war has ended, and with it Kakashi's life as a shinobi. It's time to grow up and discover what lurking menace there is beneath reality. But first: traveling the world! Adventures! A world of plenty awaits the observant demon. Story contains ghosts, demons, angels, crying anxious breakdowns, love, mint, and pretty colors. Shipping and puppies included.
1. Fly Away

**A/N: Welcome to the first Naruto fanfic I ever thought of, but not the first I ever wrote. That would be this one's sister story, New Life. The main characters here appear in different form there. If anyone wants to see what a demon does in the real world, might be interesting. **

**The omake policy for this one is: very welcome. Feel free to suggest anything. **

**Shipping: Yes. Of all kinds. **

**Updates: This one is to be my control story. In New Life, I promised to update weekly, to see if having a schedule kept me writing at a good pace. Any experiment needs a control, so for this story I will NOT establish a schedule. Let's see what happens!**

.

The last foes were defeated or assimilated. Peace was spreading throughout the land. Shinobi of all nations were reluctantly saying their goodbyes to friends from nations long distant. Naruto was 17. The great war was over.

This, Kakashi decided, was as good as time as any to abandon them and start a new chapter in his own life.

Why did he decide this? Oh, his reasoning was quite simple. He had been needed. He'd sensed that he had been needed for _something _his entire life, something that required him to stay in Konoha, and so he'd stayed. That feeling had been steadily mounting ever since he'd gotten Team 7 assigned to him, and had reached its climax during the war, until it suddenly released itself and flowed away, never to be seen again after Naruto had successfully saved the world. It felt good to have a pupil of his shine so brightly, it felt good to see they were all grown up and no longer needing him, and it felt good in a forbidden way to consider what else he had left. A desire or need to stay among the villagers of Konoha was not part of that "else".

Why it was not, well, that would be harder to explain. Everyone in the village was kind. They were all good people. He would miss a great many of them, and considered all of them friends. He did not hold any ill will against the village that had driven his father to suicide, in fact that was okay. He'd settled that when Pain came through and turned the hidden Leaf into a conspicuous crater. He would have liked to stay in the village, continue living the life of a shinobi, except for the tiny insignificant little detail that he _couldn't._ It was time for him to really put some thought into what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, and that could not be done inside the confines of a village of ninjas. They didn't know it, but if he could have explained his decision to any of them he would have compared it to the need to separate oneself from one's parents at a certain age. Kakashi, the world-famous Copy Ninja, would have no shortage of happiness, friendship and comfort if he stayed, even with that title no longer applying. That wasn't what he really wanted or needed, though.

That was why he was home today pretending to clean his clothes, cheerfully keeping up an impression of a normal life in his house while he secretly packed everything he would need. That didn't amount to much - really just a tool pack (just in case), a book (that he didn't expect to read), as many containers of his companion's favorite brand of ramen as he could find to purchase, some hairties, and two squeaky bones. Maybe a third would be good actually; if any little pups or hatchlings decided to follow in their footsteps they would certainly need some method of communication. Kakashi decided to get four. Konoha squeaky bones were really good, and he didn't know if they would decline in quality or he would be unable to buy any in the future.

The plans were already set. He would bring the cloak of darkness tonight, get them both out of the village, get directions to the nearest hideout, go there, and hopefully get several hours' worth of sleep in before the sun rose and anyone realized anything. By the time any ANBU were sent out, heck, by the time the Hokage was even _told_, he planned to be laying traces around the entirety of Konoha in order to protect them if any threat arose, and from there to move to the furthest hideout that had a good library. A nice vacation was in order; perhaps he should keep an eye out for a decent volcano on the way.

That was when a knock sounded on his door. Kakashi dried his hands on the second-fluffiest towel he owned, lazily called out "I'm coming, I'm coming" when there was a second round of knocking, and actually pulled open the door a good 10-15 seconds later. He didn't stretch his opening of the door to almost a minute because of malice; it was just habit. The person on the other side of the door knew this, and sighed. It was Shikamaru. The boy genius looked at the masked genius eye to eye for maybe the first time, looked inside, conveyed how unimpressed he was with Kakashi's living conditions with a roll of his eyes, and proceeded to relay his message.

"Kurenai sensei and several of my class are getting together to host a celebration this evening, for the victory and for goo-gooing over her baby. Women. Anyway, they want to know if you'll come, since Sakura's forcing Sasuke to come and Kurenai sensei misses jonin-level company."

Kakashi smiled with his one visible eye, because he was still in the habit of wearing his headband that way, and mock-seriously asked, "Did they really admit to all that?"

"No, but it was obvious. What should I tell them?" Shikamaru's tone indicated displeasure at being the messenger boy, but his slight smile spoiled the effect. It felt good to celebrate with friends in a relaxed way, even though it did sound like a lot of girls would be there. Maybe he was getting more interested in that sort of thing?

Kakashi scratched his head and said "Yeah, I'll be there. No books allowed?"

"Yep. Kurenai sensei smiled when she brought up that rule. It was the kind of smile that sent shivers up everyone in the room. If I were you, I wouldn't even bring one."

"Awww…"

"She's got new-mom syndrome. My mom explained it when I asked why Kurenai sensei seemed a little off. It starts when the first baby is born - the body does some kind of chemical hypnosis, and suddenly you're convinced the world revolves around 'the baby'." Shikamaru sighed and mumbled, "I am so happy to not be born a girl."

Kakashi smiled like a shark underneath his mask and mentioned casually, "Well, that happens to new fathers too." He couldn't quite stifle a giggle at the expression on Shikamaru's face, and considered it worth it. Hey, the young had to learn how the world worked sometime.

"Now I'm hoping she rips you a new one, sensei. See you there." Shikamaru turned to leave.

Kakashi stopped giggling and asked, completely seriously, "Who forced you?"

Something indescribable happened to the mood between them. It turned suddenly from a humorous commiseration between two men into something more...well, something more like a discussion from during the war. It gained gravity, that's what happened. Shikamaru turned his head slightly, so that the point of his nose became visible but no more, and answered plainly "Asuma-sensei."

Kakashi turned red and glanced downwards for a moment. He had been thinking in the short term, but in the long term that was accurate. Asuma had asked his star pupil to look after the child while he was dying. That was not something to take lightly. He tried to think of something to relieve his mistake. "I think he would be very proud, Shikamaru, to see you take your responsibility so seriously."

It had the desired effect. Shikamaru turned back to the street and nodded almost imperceptibly. "Yeah. Well, I'm off. See you then, sensei."

Kakashi closed his door and leaned against it, feeling a draining sensation already. He knew full well it was possible to miss something that had not yet disappeared, he recognized completely that often the feelings before such an event were paradoxically worse than the feelings after, and yet it was a surprise that he should feel bad this early. Usually it was only shortly before committing some unpleasant thing that the worst feelings hit, but he had hardly even done anything. That didn't stop the feeling of loss from reaching him. He lifted his headband from his left eye and looked out with both eyes, as he had before. The sensation of 3-dimensional vision helped remind him of what would be there after. An ally. That was more than most beings in his position had, or had had in the past.

Kakashi took his weight off the door and stood up, considering his next moves. Of course, he would go to see Kurenai's baby and many of his friends and companions one last time. Then, the inevitable would happen. But before that, he suddenly resolved to leave a note. It would be only the right thing to do. A simple note, explaining that he needed to leave for some reason unrelated to any hostility toward the village and that he did miss everyone and would be looking after them, would hopefully provide some closure. It would also inform the ANBU of exactly what had happened to him so they could begin the pursuit immediately, and no one would be able to argue against designating him a missing nin. _Worth it. They should know, no matter how inconvenient it may be for me. Having something left unresolved is the worst feeling in the world; just look at me and Obito. _That settled his conscience.

That left just one question: Where exactly was this celebration Kurenai was holding?

.

For the first time in a while, Kakashi actually left early for something. Of course, what he really did was leave on time when it was factored in the time he would have to spend searching for the place of celebration. He had briefly considered unleashing just enough of his true sensory power to get there easily, but nah. Repressing himself to that degree was what it took to really relate to those around him, to be as they were. It felt as right as the decision to leave a note when he decided to leave early instead, so he could spend his last hours in the village as a fellow human.

His first guess was Kurenai's house. Given the age of her baby, it would be a surprise if she brought the child to a public space. But when he got there, he saw no lights on although it was starting to get dark outside. Somewhere else then. His next guess was the barbecue house, or maybe the ramen stand. Some kind of food place. Nope and nope. As the sun settled more securely into the trees, he started to get desperate enough to consider asking someone, but just then he saw a light where there wasn't usually light. He quickly made his way over to the Konoha cemetery, with its rows of flat tombstones marking the bodies of those whose bodies could be recovered for burial. He noticed there was already partial construction for an expansion to the cemetery - practically a whole new wing. The thought occurred that there were enough dead to merit a second memorial stone. That was a depressing thought. The universe knew that his generation had had enough of mourning for fallen heroes who had been comrades. Kakashi hoped that if this generation did indeed take up that burden, it would be the last to do so. He started internally preparing to be disappointed anyway.

The light he had seen came from near Asuma's grave. How fitting.

The grass bent lightly under his footsteps as he snuck into the celebration. "Am I late?" he asked, right next to Kurenai's ear. Sakura flinched, but the intended target did not. She must have been expecting something like this. _My last chance to prank a friend...gone. _Kakashi pushed that aside and moved on, sitting in a clear spot on the edge of their little circle. "Mah, what did I miss?"

Kurenai brushed the baby's thin layer of hair over its ears with a smile, then turned. "Very little. You aren't late. Is something wrong, Kakashi?"

He heard the tease in her question. "Nah. Actually…" He gave her a look that hopefully conveyed a warning to prepare herself. "I heard a mention of Asuma."

Kurenai's eyes widened before she glared at Shikamaru. Shikamaru shot Kakashi a 'how dare you do this to me' look. Kakashi smiled back. They were ninjas. It was time to bring back some levity. Especially here where Asuma could perhaps hear them from Heaven, right?

The baby squeaked and started wriggling. Kurenai set the child down gently against her leg, where it turned vaguely in Shikamaru's direction. The boy took the baby with no visible hesitation. No; that wasn't quite correct. He was more of a man now, wasn't he? _Since when did I start thinking like a grandpa? _

No matter. Sakura smiled and looked like she was going to make a comment, but just then an uncharacteristically deep voice asked, "Am I late?" in a grave tone. Everyone jumped from hearing the unknown voice. It turned out to be Guy, or perhaps a very well-handled puppet wearing Guy's face and clothes.

No _wonder _nobody had recognized him. Kakashi chided, "Guy. It is inappropriate to behave so grimly at such a celebration. Look around," he added with a carefree sweep of his arm and cheerful tone in his voice. "You've got someone to introduce yourself to. I don't want my eternal rival to make a bad first impression, do I?"

Guy raised his eyebrows and looked at the baby. "So that's how it is...Yosh! I shall give this child a proper introduction to the strength of the Will of Fire!"

Sakura raised her hands pleadingly. "Guy sensei, we're not going to start with _that._" She looked to Kurenai for backup. "We've got to introduce him to the people first!"

Kurenai nodded. "That's right. This is a night for him to meet his new family." Sasuke shifted uncomfortably at that. Sakura smiled at him and held her arms out to take the baby from Shikamaru.

Guy nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, in order to understand the Will of Fire, one must first understand the village. Yosh!"

Kurenai looked up sharply. "He will _not _be taken on a full tour of the village, either."

Guy looked befuddled, as if he didn't have any idea what to do beyond that. Kakashi waved his hand to indicate a space beside himself, a gesture that would have been better performed from behind a book but oh well. Guy sat down and, following whispered instructions from Kakashi, tried his best not to make too much noise or disturbance.

In the meantime, Sasuke was looking at the child he now held with a contemplative look. Everyone there had some idea of what he might be thinking. Sasuke himself hadn't been very old when the concerns of the world had barged in and stolen his childhood. What kind of life would this little one have? Kakashi hoped his former student had gained enough sense to take this as a reason to protect the child. He watched a determined look settle into Sasuke's eyes. _Thank goodness, everyone's going to be just fine._

Kurenai asked Sakura if she had any medically recommended advice to give. Kakashi took that as the cue that everyone was here and their little party could start. Shikamaru waved Sasuke over and began to either talk to him or threaten him, maybe both. That left himself and Guy to find something to do. Kakashi scratched behind his ear. Do what? Now that he thought about it, years of burying his face in a book while others talked seemed like a less than effective way to learn social skills. Ah well, nothing to do about that now. And in a way, he was grateful to Kurenai for forcing him out of that. Huddling in a corner was no way to spend one's last moment of easy happiness with old friends, was it?

That hurt. Kakashi smiled instead and pushed the hurt aside. Infinity stretched ahead of him. Huddling in a village wouldn't do him any favors, either. He turned to Guy and asked about the one thing remaining unsettled between them. "So, what's the score?"

Guy actually looked blank for a few seconds before his face brightened. _Damn, the war must have taken a toll if he's even forgetting about the score. _But brighten, his face did, and Guy eagerly pronounced the score. As of last count, he, Guy, had been one point in the lead. Then Guy grew thoughtful. The last count had been before the war. He wondered how to account for that.

Kakashi wondered, "Should we account for that? It seems like bad form to count saving the world as some kind of competition…"

Guy nodded. "Yes, we must set an example for the youthful generations. The fires of youth must never consume such things."

Kakashi thought some more, then saw a chance. "Say, Guy… Your students and mine are grown. The fires of youth are theirs now, not ours. What do you say we settle the score?"

Guy scoffed at the idea. "The fires of youth may die down, but they are never extinguished until we are resting next to our comrades in this ground. We must never give up!"

Kakashi sighed. "I don't mean to give up. I mean…" He thought of how to phrase what he meant so that Guy would understand. "I mean that our score is a kind of measurement of the fires of our youth, right? Why not leave it to the young to measure how much they are growing? We grandpas have no need to measure how much we decline."

Guy was shocked. "That's right…"

Kakashi delivered what he hoped would be the winning argument. "Besides, anyone who needs a number to keep them from giving up is not really lit with the fires of youth. I've learned that from watching you and Lee. Lee has no need to be pushed to train, does he?"

Guy grimaced. "Of course not!"

"I'm not that boy who hides in the corner away from people anymore, Guy. You can stop pushing me. I'll compete with you on your own terms now, the terms of not giving up even if we are told we should. Isn't that an improvement?"

Guy stared. "Kakashi…" Then he smirked. "Is this the student teaching the teacher?"

Kakashi gave him a stern look. "I regard the fact that he is able to do so as a commendation to my teaching skills." He held up a pinky. "Let's promise. To never losing the will to continue."

Guy linked his pinky with Kakashi's. "To never losing that will."

Kakashi smiled while something deep inside broke. _I will never play janken or hold my breath with Guy again._ If only he had been able to know when the last time was the last, could he have savored it more?

He heard Sakura mutter, "Uh oh." They unlinked their pinkies and turned back to find the rest of the gathering staring. Sakura looked between them and asked, "That doesn't mean anything bad, does it? The last time you two held one of your competitions Tsunade sama had to send someone to find you, and when they didn't she had to pay out of her own funds to replace those windows."

Kakashi waved a hand to reassure her. "Mah, mah, nothing like that. Tsunade sama doesn't have to worry at all."

Kurenai looked skeptical. "Are you sure?"

Guy gave her a thumbs up and a glittering smile. "Do not worry! We have promised not to engage in fruitless competition again! From now on, the fires of our youth will show themselves in the heat of battle and the grounds of the training fields!"

Several pairs of eyes widened at this announcement. Kakashi's lone eye also did so. He had not expected Guy to announce the end so proudly. But Guy didn't know it was the end, did he? Kakashi resolved to add that to his note. _I'm sorry for not telling you it was the end._

As if it had some special sensory power, the baby began to cry. Kakashi was pretty sure it was coincidence and not psychic powers. Pretty sure. Kurenai took back her child and began to soothe it with quiet whispers of love. It hurt terribly to look at. Kakashi made himself hold onto every second.

Shikamaru looked like he didn't know whether to be relieved or worried. "Seems like everyone's got whatever they need to off their chest. Should we start the service now?" Kurenai looked up at him and nodded. Shikamaru stood up solemnly and walked away into the darkness.

Whether or not the others had been told about there being a service, they moved as one away from Asuma's gravestone. Kakashi stepped back with them. Shikamaru returned with flowers, a bunch for each of them. He also held a candle and had a picture tucked under his arm. He passed out the flowers to everyone else, keeping one extra bunch with him since Kurenai sensei had her arms occupied at the moment, then set the candle down on Asuma's gravestone. He lit the candle from one of the lanterns and set the picture of Asuma next to it on the stone. He adjusted the picture, changing its angle several times until the flickering light almost made Asuma's face seem alive. Asuma's bearded face smiled out at them from the picture, which must have been taken shortly before his last mission. In it, his ever-present cigarette dangled from his lips as he looked to the side of the camera, faintly amused at whoever took the picture. He relaxed with his arms spread out beside him to cover the back of a couch. If there was a way to take a picture of a personality, the taker of this photo had discovered it.

Shikamaru stepped back to join Kurenai sensei. Before silence could fully descend, there came the sound of grass crinkling in the darkness. Ino and Choji joined the party, both wearing their old earrings from their days in Team 10 and carrying large, yet tasteful bunches of flowers from the flower shop. They seemed to sense that they were just in time as they stopped and lowered their heads in memory. Silence fell over those assembled as they watched the flickering light play over Asuma's face. The baby fussed, making soft little mewling sounds, but nobody shushed it. The sounds seemed to add a bittersweet note to the occasion.

After a few minutes, Kurenai looked to Sasuke and gestured at the stone. Sasuke's cheeks turned red as he hesitantly made his way over and placed the flowers before Asuma's picture. He paused, seemed to decide it was alright, and whispered something to Asuma's grave before standing and rejoining the others. Kakashi wondered what his former student had on his mind this time as Sasuke stared at the stone, seemingly lost in thought.

Sakura went next, followed by Kakashi, then Guy. Ino, Shikamaru and Choji walked together to place their flowers. Ino's flowers went on the lower left corner, Choji's on the lower right, and Shikamaru laid his bunch a little in front of Asuma's stone in the center. He said some quiet words about the stability of a triangle, how no corner could exist without each of the others, and how they would always be Team 10. Ino and Choji closed their eyes to remember.

Finally, Kurenai stepped forward. Before he had walked forward to lay down his own, Shikamaru had given her the bunch of flowers she now walked up with. They were laid on Asuma's stone with everyone else's; they were not the most important thing she brought. Kurenai set her child carefully on the ground next to Shikamaru's flowers, checking to see if the baby could see Asuma's face well from this angle. All seemed to be satisfactory.

As she supported the child, including holding its head up so the baby could see the picture, it cooed in a questioning tone. The baby's arms reached out vaguely in Asuma's direction. Kurenai lifted him over the flowers so he could touch the photo. His little hands sprawled across Asuma's nose and mouth, one finger reaching up to his eye. Kurenai's back was to them, but her tears were audible in her voice as she whispered, "That's your father. He loved you very much."

The baby continued to clumsily reach out, then yawned. Kurenai took him back into her arms as she continued to kneel before Asuma's grave. Ino and Choji drew in closer beside her. Shikamaru looked back at Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi and Guy, and lifted his hand in a careless 'do what you want' gesture. Sakura and Sasuke looked at each other, exchanged facial expressions, and ultimately decided to leave Team 10 and Kurenai to their privacy. Kakashi and Guy stayed for a few minutes longer, because they had been Asuma's comrades and teammates once, then departed without a sound.

Kakashi felt some control start to slip, and held it fast. Even through the haze of pain that threatened to come spilling out as tears, his resolve did not waver. He would not open his senses and purge the darkness a single _centimeter _before he passed the walls of Konoha. The streets and seconds disappeared so that in no time at all, Kakashi was standing before his own front door.

He grabbed his prepared pack with numb fingers, fingers which inexplicably flared as if they were on fire when he picked up a pen. The next moment Kakashi had pen to paper and the words simply spilled onto the page.

_Dear Everyone, _

_I love you and would love to stay with you forever, but unfortunately I cannot. I'm sure I can't make it clear what I mean, but I need to give you something. It is this: I've outgrown this village. I can't stay, in the same way that no child can stay within the confines of their parent's life forever. I have something that no one else knows about, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry that the me you've loved is only a part of me. It's the only part of me I've had so far. There's more, but it is too dangerous. I must leave this village to find it, and I will never be able to come back once I do. I've always known I didn't belong here, but I stayed for you. Now I leave for you too. I miss you. _

_PS Guy, I'm sorry I didn't tell you it was the end. _

_PPS Kurenai, Shikamaru, thank you for giving me a chance to remember the past before I dive into such a far-away future. It was perfect. I'm sorry. _

_PPPS Don't worry for me more than your bonds force you to. I won't be alone. _

Kakashi's handwriting got steadier as he went on, as the tears fell to the page and soaked in. They lent authenticity to what he was trying to say, the words that he was sure nobody he was leaving this note for would be able to understand properly. Perhaps with proof like this soaked into the paper, they could understand the feelings he was trying to convey some day. Some day when he was so far removed from who and what he was now that this part of his life would seem to be a strange dream. Perhaps it _was _a dream. Dreams always felt so real when you were having them. At any rate, his feelings were real. That mattered.

Kakashi took a last big inhale of the scent of the space he had called home for years, just before he opened the window. In the residential areas of Konoha, the risk was too high that he would be seen if he left the normal way. The one and only thing he would stop holding back from doing before he left Konoha was this. Kakashi took the darkness and held it around him, a perfect cocoon that would keep him from being seen, scented, or heard. He released his hold on the window, and let go.

His feet flew as the darkness bent around him. He refused to allow his senses to release to compensate. He would just have to do this blind. Quickly he traveled through the village, soon reaching the outskirts.

The security around this area was impossible to penetrate for anyone else. With the darkness around him he passed through leaving no trace. Kakashi knew the layout of these cells, dropped his darkness cloak just enough to see into them. When he found who he was looking for, he unwound the darkness and settled it around them both.

His companion was moderately impressed. "Marvelous technique you have here," Orochimaru muttered. "Are you ready?" Mid-run might not seem the best place to ask this, but it was for Kakashi. He nodded and swallowed. They ran directly up the wall surrounding Konoha village, and leaped off.

As his feet left the comforting smooth surface of the outer wall and entered the wild and free air, Kakashi allowed his natural perception to extend outwards. The night exploded into clarity, every nook and cranny, every line and curve utterly, absurdly detailed. Every face and edge of his environment could be felt in his soul. For the first time since he was a baby, Kakashi could perceive everything. The forest beneath him was a beacon of light, a distant shrine the deepest darkness. The air was alive. He was...

_Oh._

_Flight._

_Home._

Several guards on duty that night would be required to report for biweekly mental health checkups for months after they reported a dragon taking flight from the west wall.

.

**A/N: I am currently at the part of the war arc where Madara just cancelled the Edo Tensei, Obito's still alive and trying to keep Black Zetsu from getting his Rinnegan, and Naruto's (seemingly) dying because the Kyuubi just got ripped out and swallowed by the statue. That is all I have seen. The rest of my information comes from spoilers I've seen on Facebook and elsewhere. Pardon any minor inaccuracies I may have in this chapter.**


	2. See The Darkness

**A/N: I started to publish this story because I had this second chapter written and wanted to get it out. The publishing "schedule" of whenever I have a new chapter ready starts...now. **

The next morning found Kakashi preparing to finally go to sleep. The original plan had been to catch a precious few hours of sleep before going back to lay traces to befuddle pursuers, but Kakashi had underestimated the power of his conscience. After flying them both to the nearest hideout, Kakashi had found his gut sinking with the realization that this was it. He was never going to go home again. Home would never even _be _home again. The sudden urge had sprung up to go, _now_, go back to the village and see it one last time before it was too late. He had obeyed.

Of course Kakashi knew it had been too late ever since he first left the wall, and he only saw it from the outside in the process of laying trails to befuddle pursuers, but no matter. The drive had to be satisfied somehow. He was amazed to see for himself what a difference his newly unleashed senses made in his perception of the place. He saw the occasional torch with his usual eyes, but he now felt the presence of the guards themselves, including the ones hidden in nooks in the wall as well as the patrolling ANBU outside. His enhanced senses not only used the darkness to see instead of light, but also picked up other things that no natural sense could. The souls of the people on guard had weight, and seemed to bend the fabric of space-time. He spent five minutes standing still, fascinated by a soul passing by that had particularly unusual qualities, because his senses could not only detect the presence of souls but also what kind they were. This unusual soul was rather loose in its body. It rocked slightly back from the fingertips or toes with every movement. Kakashi thought of the consequences of that, and found his perception spreading across time. It was not good for a soul to be loosened from its body. The only way a soul could be so loosened was by tremendous suffering; Kakashi foresaw this person's eventual suicide some months in the future. Before that, they would become very sick as the cells of their fingertips stopped and started decay with every movement of their soul. Kakashi turned away from this and raced to lay a trail on the opposite side of the village.

It wasn't any better from this angle. There were a lot of souls left slightly askew by the events of the war. Kakashi could perceive each mark. He reined in his senses for his own protection now, leaving only the general sense of a soul's presence that he needed to remain undetected. By the time he was done, which was about 13 minutes after an alarmed soul had first scurried from his former house to the Hokage's, Kakashi no longer felt the urge to remain close to his home. He walked away slowly with his hands in his pockets to stop them from shaking. When he'd written that he wouldn't be able to come back, he had meant that it would be a bad idea no matter how much he wanted to. _I never thought I would stop wanting to. _

In retrospect, that was pretty dumb. The gaining of knowledge had a surprising side effect: it made the lack of knowledge rather irritating. If a battle-hardened shinobi were actually to go back to the academy where they had spent their innocence, the experience would be grating. He should have seen that all he had seen with his old eyes would now seem empty to his new ones. Kakashi sighed. _I'm glad I spent my last few hours there as a human. I'm not really one anymore. _

He had released some darkness from his hands and shaped it into the exact likeness of a paper note, complete with writing that looked just like ink. Despite years of experience looking past illusions, his whole body prickled to realize how easily even bare physical reality could be faked. Kakashi shivered as he slipped the note through the smallest of gaps into Orochimaru's room for tonight. The note was to inform him not to wake Kakashi up in the morning.

This time he factored in his own conscience correctly, and his mind was indeed beginning to quiet down only half an hour before first light. Kakashi spread his darkness in the room to block out all noise, moved some of it out to edit the note so Orochimaru would know he was free to move as he wished, and finally drifted off to sleep.

He awoke two hours later, already knowing that Orochimaru had gone out to hunt small animals for breakfast. Between that and the contents of his pack, Kakashi knew they would be fine. He yawned, retracted all his darkness, and got up to wait.

While waiting, Kakashi thought he would boil water so a cup of ramen would be ready upon Orochimaru's return. That was how he discovered a property of his darkness that Orochimaru would have fell down in delight from, had he been there at its discovery. To Kakashi's surprise, he was not able to cast even a simple fire jutsu. He had exactly zero chakra in or on his body. None. Kakashi instead retracted all the darkness in his hands to its former dimensions, and sat down to wait and observe what happened with his new senses.

Half an hour later, he knew what had happened. While he had been looking at this, he'd sent some darkness out another way to scrape together some rocks and started a fire the old-fashioned way. The amount of darkness contained in his body essentially provided unlimited limbs. That was very creepy, and Kakashi was not at all eager to explore further, but it did allow him to prepare boiling water while observing his hands.

Shortly after he deduced what was going on Orochimaru returned with a mouse and two birds. Kakashi raised an eyebrow at his companion's hunting prowess. All that time for _that?_ Orochimaru chuckled. "I captured these in the last five minutes." Kakashi did have to admit it was impressive that all three animals were still alive and uninjured. "I wanted them to be fresh for our first meal together. Before that, I was enjoying this _delightful_ weather." Kakashi could hear the falsehood of these words. Orochimaru quickly added, "As well as watching over the people of the nearest small village. You might be delighted to hear that I observed one or two criminal acts while I was there."

Again, the qualities of Orochimaru's words were audible. Kakashi realized it was because he was combining the words with his perception of Orochimaru's soul, thus allowing him to tell exactly what his companion meant behind each word. It was very strange to be able to hear downplaying. He gestured with his head back to the boiling water and open package of ramen next to it.

Orochimaru's face could have belonged to a little boy as he left the animals in Kakashi's grip. They were frightened, immensely so. Kakashi could see why freshness meant catching them only five minutes before, as their little hearts were all about to give out. He pulled down his mask and crunched through the two birds first, catching the second one only a second before it would have died from a heart attack. The mouse with its slightly slower heartbeat would last longer. Orochimaru took a seat next to Kakashi as the boiled water worked its magic. His eyes wandered over to the mouse, but he waved Kakashi on to enjoy it. Again Kakashi's pointed teeth crunched down, breaking the mouse's back with less effort than it would have taken to break a dry twig. As before with the birds, the force of his bite left him with mouse parts to hold as he bite entirely through it. Orochimaru sniffed at this. "Dogs." Then the ramen was ready.

Kakashi waited to begin speaking. "I will make one thing clear," he began. Orochimaru's expression did not change as he swallowed the last bite. "I do not want there to be any human experiments at all."

At this Orochimaru frowned. "Why not?"

"Think of it as nostalgia," Kakashi explained. "I've lived a human life for the entirety of my existence, have known many excellent humans. I've been kind and looked out for them. I'm not ready to leave behind everything just yet. I think I would like to keep that much with me forever."

"Ah." Orochimaru nodded. "Of course, I abandoned any plans I might have had for human experiments as soon as you asked. But that reason - sentimental keepsakes - I can understand." He looked up at a sudden rustle as a squirrel jumped from branch to branch close to the front entrance of his hideout. "But you value some keepsakes more than others, which is why you're keeping that and discarding your past profession of killing the killers?"

"You didn't see any killers, but yes." Kakashi shook his head. "I am not using any of my wider senses to see what you really saw. Common sense is enough to tell me that the two crimes you witnessed in a half hour span in a tiny village could not have been serious ones."

Orochimaru shrugged. "Arbitrary splitting of categories."

"Anyway," Kakashi continued, "I'm glad that's settled. Thank you. I thought we deserved a vacation from our previous activities before starting over, but there is something I've found that you might want to research when you return to your experiments."

Orochimaru's eyes gleamed. He smiled. "So soon, Puppy?"

"I'm sure you have plans for experimenting on and with me sooner or later, but this is something you most likely haven't thought to test," Kakashi admonished. "I'm not getting to anything else just yet. You really should take a vacation of some sort, if only because I think it's a good idea."

Orochimaru grimaced. "I won't like that. But fine, for your sake I'll write down your idea and get back to it later. What is it?"

Kakashi still had not extended any darkness from his hands. He checked them again to confirm. _Yep, even more. _"My darkness destroys any chakra it touches."

Orochimaru stiffened. It was a good thing he had finished eating. "It does? What are your observations? Does it always- " He stopped himself. "Dammit, Puppy."

Kakashi was concerned. "If you're really a natural scientist like that… Fine, but limit it. I don't want to torture you, I just think you should get out of the lab more." He held out his hand. "Yesterday I got a little carried away and extended darkness all around me to form into a dragon. This morning, I discovered that I couldn't cast the most minimal of fire jutsu. I had exactly zero chakra."

Orochimaru sat at rapt attention. He was unconsciously running his tongue over his left fang. Kakashi smiled. "So I restricted my darkness in my hands and watched them very closely. It would've taken forever for a normal person to see any results, and they wouldn't have been very precise." He looked down at his hand. "But now that I can see it and I'm paying attention, I see that each of my working cells has darkness in it to operate the cell's machinery. This machinery produces chakra as it runs, but most of it is destroyed. Only a small amount of the chakra escapes, and that only from the cells on the outside of my body where it can gather on the surface of my skin. When I extend darkness beyond my body I destroy even this."

Orochimaru's eyes were looking somewhere not located in the present time. "The Hatake Clan, your father especially, is known for ninjutsu mastery, so pathetically low chakra doesn't make sense, but this is perfect. It explains why you always have so little chakra, and why you recover it so slowly. Aahhhh...I love it when a mystery is solved so completely!"

Kakashi nodded and waited. He knew what was coming.

Orochimaru then asked him to take a record of his ideas. "This raises many, many possibilities. I can't use it, but I did learn how to sense natural energy and some of the properties of it at Ryuichi Cave. We should see if your darkness destroys natural energy when you have it outside your body. If this is the case, why haven't demons drained the world of chakra already? Why does your darkness destroy chakra; does chakra have anything to do with divine forces, perhaps? If darkness destroys chakra, how can your senses which use darkness to see perceive it? Mortal eyes have to interact with light in order to see it; perhaps this is not the case with your kind. What is the rate and efficiency of chakra destruction? Can chakra in different forms be destroyed? What about…"

Kakashi sighed. _Yes, he is a natural scientist after all. He has those questioning instincts. It would be cruel to keep him away from a laboratory. Maybe I should try to work other things into his lab time, instead of asking him to step out of it. He can learn companionship from partnering with someone in experiments, perhaps. _But Kakashi knew full well that a great many things could not be learned in this fashion at all. He pushed that thought away for the moment. _I wish so much that he could have found something else to absorb his interest in instead of jutsu…_ Kakashi's power did not extend to alternate versions of events, at least not if he didn't deliberately look. That was a mercy.

Orochimaru turned to him and stared in his eyes as if searching for the mysteries of the universe in them. "Not to mention what this reveals about the scale of your senses. It's not how much you can see, Kakashi, but the _scale! _You see even minute amounts of chakra, know the workings of your own cells… And on the other end, you know things across time too. The _breadth _of your perception is simply..._fascinating_." Orochimaru's pupils were almost wide enough to resemble normal human ones, and his breath came in deep gusts. His tongue traced over his fangs with more fervor, and it occurred to Kakashi that Orochimaru was well within kissing distance. He was very glad nobody else was around. For his own comfort only, of course. His serpentine companion had never cared about his downright creepy reputation. It was worse than Jiraiya's, but more hidden. People didn't talk as easily about the Snake Sannin as his more outgoing teammate.

Orochimaru retreated to a more socially acceptable distance and regained control of himself. Kakashi thought this was a good time to point out that they should be moving on. This was the nearest hideout; as soon as anyone realized Orochimaru was missing, it would be one of the first places searched. The serpent nodded. His smile was infectious. Kakashi wondered if genuine joy like this had ever been shared with anyone else. He hoped so, at least once.

The fire was doused, the burned wood scattered. Everything was returned where it had gone. Kakashi repacked his pack, refolded everything the way it had been, and sent some darkness back in after they were out to sweep the dust back into place. He also picked up their scent traces. There would be no sign remaining that anyone had ever been here since it was first found and picked through.

Orochimaru came up to Kakashi when this was done. He was strangely hesitant. Kakashi could feel a shying away, a reluctance. "May I…?"

Kakashi nodded. Orochimaru walked around and wrapped both his arms around Kakashi's shoulders from behind, squeezing him in a close embrace. "Be careful, Puppy," he warned.

"Mah, don't worry. This is what I was meant for." Kakashi meant that statement in every possible way it could be interpreted. Orochimaru sighed. His breath tickled the side of Kakashi's neck. With the retrieval of his pack and the careful sprouting of wings, they lifted off.

Kakashi repelled the light, keeping them from being visible as they rose up into the cool air. Of course he did not repel light from their own eyes, so they could see. Orochimaru giggled when he was told of this. For fun, they swooped in wide arcs as they ascended. Orochimaru's hair whipped around like a flag at every twist and turn, his grip loosened even as he wrapped his legs around Kakashi's. When nothing impeded their vision, Kakashi stopped and hovered there.

The early morning sun shone bright, unobstructed by even the highest of trees in the forest around Konoha. Orochimaru whispered, "Beautiful," even though he was forced to squint. Kakashi saw what he had been referring to upon looking down. The light which did not meet their bodies flowed around them instead like little shimmering waves. Orochimaru cautiously reached out with one hand, and peach light flared around it. He pulled it back and cupped his palm, as if to hold the light. _Beautiful. _Orochimaru looked all around and beneath them, where individual trees could not be discerned anymore. "How are you able to do this?"

He had been able to reach out because it felt now as if the both of them had been freed from gravity's pull. Kakashi realized his wings were not even beating. "I'm not sure. I just thought of hovering here, and...we are." Maybe some other day at some other minute he would try to see the force of gravity and figure out how that worked. But not this minute.

"Do you want to sit somewhere?" A thin platform of darkness stretched beneath them.

"No." Orochimaru's hands lifted from around his shoulders and replaced themselves around Kakashi's waist. For psychological comfort Kakashi wrapped straps of darkness around them both. They watched the morning sun for some time, turning slowly with movements of Kakashi's outstretched wings. Orochimaru's right hand stroked Kakashi's ribs, almost unconsciously. The whole world seemed to stretch away beneath them.

Kakashi let out a wide yawn as the feeling of peace inside him built to intolerable amounts. "Let's fly."

"Rrrr." Orochimaru nuzzled at his neck. "Yes."

Kakashi pushed his wings back, and they sprang forward into gravity's waiting embrace.

Downward they plunged, spearing through air which seemed to thicken as they did so. Eventually it was so solid they could make no gains and continued at one speed. The world spun as they spiraled. Trees flashed at the edge of their vision, then the distant plateau above Konoha, then trees again. Orochimaru gasped, the air whipping past his waiting lungs and not into them. The trees and plateau were all one blur. His grip loosened. Then Kakashi's wings spread behind them and the air felt as if it tilted. Their speed did not slow, nor gravity seem to abate. All too quickly they raced along horizontally to the ground, seeming to be skidding across an invisible pond. Kakashi had no idea if he was defying the laws of physics or not, or if maybe the laws became blurry at such extremes of motion. They eventually began to sink, but did not lose speed. The Elemental Nations flashed by beneath them.

Kakashi took them south. They passed into the clouds over Amegakure, getting soaked even though the clouds were not releasing rain yet. They dried as mountains rose, and Kakashi thrilled to race up the rocky slopes, so close that the slightest wrong move would dash them both against stone and obliterate their flesh. When they rose in this way over the peak of the mountain and Kakashi found the land abruptly drop beneath him, he felt just as he had leaping from Konoha's wall.

They landed in a deep valley at the base of the mountain, a carved valley with slopes so steep on all sides that not one house was built for five kilometers in any direction. Something had gouged at the ground even here, so that Orochimaru's hideout was nearly inaccessible to non-shinobi. This was a very small hideout, with only a variety of training rooms. Kakashi guessed this was a good place for training his elite subordinates. Orochimaru nodded. "What gave it away?"

They both stood in front of a wide entryway, on a very small ledge that jutted out from the entry to offer a view. Kakashi noticed that the ledge ended on either side, so nobody could use it to sneak to or from the entry, and there were no ledges nearby. This had to be the one spot on the entire cliff face where there was no such place for a person to stand above them, either. Orochimaru confirmed this assessment with a nod. The only enemies that would be confronted here would have to be a match for whoever was trained; no time would be wasted on riffraff.

They went inside. Kakashi had sensed its size, and Orochimaru told him of its general purpose and layout. Now Orochimaru gave a tour. The right path, he said, would lead to the actual rooms for training. For politeness' sake he offered to show Kakashi the obstacle courses and such, but Kakashi understood that wasn't what Orochimaru had guided him to this place for. They did walk down the left path, which led to Orochimaru's own quarters and his laboratory. Did he have a lab in every base? Orochimaru answered that yes, he had at least one thing in all of them.

This base, being designed for the elite, was not mentioned anywhere in Orochimaru's written records. Its location was recorded only in the memory of anyone who was shown here. For this reason, it had escaped being plundered the way every other hideout had been after news of his death was confirmed. Orochimaru invited him to take a look at any sheet of paper contained in this room, any sheet at all.

"You know," Kakashi mentioned, "no shinobi would be so open with their secrets, and you were much more secretive than most. I'm not that special. There has to be a reason you'd give me that permission." He picked up a scroll and unrolled it. The information contained made his hair stand on end. It seemed to be a piece of the original research that led to the development of Orochimaru's body switching technique. That eliminated the possibility that he was allowed because there was nothing of value here.

Orochimaru chuckled. "True enough. It's a special kind of strategy that I thought up, you could say." Kakashi raised an eyebrow in his direction. Orochimaru shrugged. "Nothing can be done about the fact that you are much more powerful than I am. I can never become a demon, and you can never cease to be one. Even back then, when you were just a lonely child and I hadn't left the village yet, you told me that you knew things, that your powers excelled at information gathering even when you refused to use them.

"So I have two reasons not to be secretive with you. The first is that it would be a wasted effort. The second is that the only possible message that effort could send is that I don't trust you. Sending that message would make you feel badly about me, in turn. But if I do just the opposite, you're a moral person. You would never betray my trust." Orochimaru wrinkled his nose. "I am well aware that defensive trust is a strategy for fools, and I don't like it. But, it's all I can do with someone like you."

Kakashi looked down at the scroll in his hands. It suddenly seemed dirty. He threw it away. "You're right," he murmured. "But also wrong. To think of trust as either a weakness or a shield-" He shook his head. "I refuse that. I must earn such a thing, not be given it just because you don't have a choice."

"Exactly as I said. You are a moral person." Kakashi groaned at that. _I see some reeducation is in order, _he decided. Then: _But it would be better if he had never been so educated in the first place. Would it have been better if he'd never been in the shinobi world? _Kakashi knew full well the impossibility of that. He sighed and walked to the door, waited outside until Orochimaru was done salvaging his most valuable research.

Kakashi had his typical Konoha-issue vest on, so he moved the bones and book to his pockets to clear space. Orochimaru somehow managed to fit all that paper into the small space of his pack, a talent he had surely honed over years of working with research results that had to be written down. Kakashi wondered if the Konoha filing clerks in the Hokage's Tower could have done as well. Then they were off, retracing their steps back to the place where the paths forked. Kakashi could feel a rising agitation of the pleasant kind in Orochimaru as they walked. Excitement. This was what they had come to this hideout for.

The middle path, Orochimaru flourished, led to the quarters of the actual elite subordinates who were supposed to be staying here. Kakashi failed to see how that could be the most important part. Orochimaru patted his head as if he was a small child again. "You'll see."

They walked past all the rooms in that part of the base, taking a sharp turn to the right after a while. The walls changed. As the rooms ended, the walls became grayer, the halls less well lit, and Kakashi began to see metal. They came to a giant metal door, heavily barred and chained in four different places, with a keyslot only accessible beneath the heavy bar. It was very imposing, all the more so for the door having only small holes for ventilation, not even so much as a slot.

Orochimaru reached between the second and third chains and turned a very small switch that Kakashi only just then noticed. The door clicked and he pushed it open, laughing as it swung in. Kakashi had to grin too. He bumped his fist against Orochimaru's as they entered and the Snake Sannin closed the door behind them.

Inside the room protected by the overly complicated metal door was yet more metal doors. These ones were genuine, Kakashi thought. Orochimaru led him to a wooden door at the very end of the room which was much better protected than the others. It had a seal on it. "This is mine," Orochimaru muttered as he disarmed the seal.

Kakashi peered past his shoulder in eagerness, but to his disappointment saw nothing. There was nothing here but several small boxes. One in the far corner was closed; it might have held something. Kakashi turned to his companion and raised an eyebrow. It was time to demand an explanation.

"As you might have guessed, this is a storage room." Orochimaru nodded down at the closed box. "I think I put some of my old Konoha equipment in there. This is where personal belongings are stored that must be left behind."

Kakashi's eyes widened. He looked at Orochimaru, caught his snake eyes. Orochimaru shrugged. "You're not the only one leaving things behind." With that he undid his rope belt and took off his pale outer garment, leaving only his dark shirt and pants. The discarded clothes went into a box, which he closed. Then he turned to the closed box and opened it. It did indeed hold an old Konoha-issue vest and headband. Orochimaru pulled out the vest slowly, as if it was something of value. "The insignia needs to go, and it needs to look different," he said slowly. "Can you help with that, Kakashi?"

Kakashi was too startled to say anything for a few seconds. "Um, yes. I could cut it out, and find material to patch it with. And some dye."

"Much appreciated." Orochimaru closed the box and went to stand in the door. "The mind, properly applied, is the most powerful thing in the world. Doubtless you know this. To change one's life, the mind must change also. A change of clothes does wonders for that."

Kakashi looked down at the third box. "I understand." He walked over to stand above it, and hesitated.

"What's wrong?" Orochimaru asked after he had spent a full minute hesitating.

Kakashi met his gaze. "I understand more than anyone else would, actually. You see, I have not only choice of clothes, but choice of materials too." He reached back and unwound his headband. He turned it back and forth, watched the light glimmer along its polished metal. "This is the only real thing I have ever worn," he whispered.

Kakashi sighed and curled his fingers around it, covering the leaf symbol. Slowly, carefully, he placed it in the box, and closed the lid of the box the same way. A shiver raced up his back, and Kakashi could have sworn that something inside came unmoored and started to drift freely. The feeling of loss was sharp and thick. He wrinkled his forehead, then rubbed it. It felt almost unnatural. Yet, it felt freeing too. This time something passed through the air between them when his gaze met Orochimaru's, and the feeling of loss eased somewhat. He went to stand by Orochimaru.

Kakashi raised his hand as he came near, though Orochimaru made no move to speak. He closed his eyes and imagined things he'd never dared think of before. His vest brightened to a bright forest green, then turned to a golden yellow, then Kakashi shook his head. No; he should have a vest that clearly reflected what he was and what he would always be. It returned to the dark forest green of Konoha, then to dark gray, and finally turned black. _Nobody but us will ever see it, so there's no harm…_ Kakashi's vest turned blacker than black, the color of something that absorbs light utterly. His pants and sandals followed suit, every item in his wardrobe giving up the pretense of being real fabric.

On a whim Kakashi made other changes, adding and subtracting at will. When he finally opened his eyes and signaled that he was done, the collar of his vest was studded with a single row of spikes. Only the pockets where he kept his hands and his book remained; the rest were replaced with decorative gray leaf designs that would have been dark on any other item of clothing, but seemed to shine like beacons on his clothing of darkness. His pants were unchanged, but the bandages he usually wore over them were gone. Kakashi's fingerless gloves and sandals now had claws to match his fingers and toes. He turned to show Orochimaru the rest. Orochimaru's eyes sparkled to see the red Konoha spiral replaced by a third leaf, in dark green this time. Over Kakashi's shoulder blades little projections of darkness stood out like miniature wings. That was in fact what they were, as he demonstrated by flapping them.

"So, what do you think?" Kakashi posed for inspection.

Orochimaru grinned. "I like it. The color suits you very well, and the spikes. May I ask why the leaves are vertical and of a different design?"

On all 3 designs, the leaf-tip pointed up and the stem pointed down, although the ones on his front were also concave. Kakashi smiled. "They're different leaves."

"Oh?" Orochimaru looked again at the long, thin leaf outlines with the shape of a fang at the base, point meeting the stem. "What are they, then?"

"There is no Hatake clan symbol," Kakashi murmured sadly. "It's hard to come up with one, since we have many different branches in separate villages. We're all half-beast, but each branch is a different species. I belong to the Wolf branch of Konoha, and have cousins in the Desert Lizard branch of Suna with very different features. Our fang-teeth are the only things we have in common."

Orochimaru tapped his chin. "Hmm. How about you keep the fang and leaf for yourself, then, since Konoha is specific to you, and the other two can be fang-teeth?"

"Oh...that's a good idea." The two leaves on his front instantly reshaped into teeth which, instead of growing normal crowns, had grown two fangs from their surface instead. Each tooth was oriented so the larger fang was closest to the center. Orochimaru approved.

He turned to leave. Kakashi stayed where he was and looked down. _So strange. It feels as if I'm just playing dress up, and I'll go back to my real clothes when we're done. It doesn't feel permanent. _This was the answer to the question he had wondered last night. For all his power, Kakashi felt helpless. _Even if I had known it was the last contest, I couldn't have cherished it more because it wouldn't have felt like it was really the last. *sigh* Mah, nothing to do about that now, I guess. _

Two people walked out of a dark cliffside cave into the bright midday sun that day. They were not the same two people who had walked in.


	3. Use The Darkness

Kakashi sighed as the midday sun warmed his clothes more than he was used to. Orochimaru, likewise. Kakashi wondered if it was an even greater change for his companion, to be without the weight of that belt. "Any more unpleasant surprises?" he asked.

Orochimaru looked at him in a very curious manner. "You don't already know?"

That was true. Kakashi could just find out for himself. But… The wolf ninja shook his head. "That's another reason I always thought your quest for power was misguided," he sighed. "It's lonely."

Orochimaru seemed amused. Kakashi glared at him in genuine anger. "No, and not a good kind of lonely either. It's...much like a prison sentence. A small creature that lived its whole life in a cave would not mind being in a jail cell, but you would, because you have the power to walk and move. In the same way, I could have secretly used my powers, but always in secret. I could never use the information for anything, never show anyone my abilities. It would have driven me mad to be able to exercise myself, but very little."

Kakashi ended his glare and took a deep breath, calming himself. _It's not his fault. Even if it's less than the others, he still is really different from me. _He finished with, "So, better to commit wholeheartedly. When you disguise yourself, it's best not to go partway, because then something in the way you act will get you caught. Better to be entirely in the role than hold on to what you are outside of it. At any rate...it was what I had to do, in order to not be alone." He opened his eyes and looked softly at Orochimaru. _I don't want to be alone now,_ he hoped the snake would read in his gaze.

Orochimaru tilted his head. "I do enjoy good company, but the lack of it doesn't exactly trouble me." He shrugged. Kakashi despaired. _He probably didn't hear me, then. _Orochimaru continued, "But I recall what it was like to have to hide, keep everything I'd learned secret, as if I shouldn't have been _praised_ for advancing the village's knowledge." His lips twisted into something between a smirk and a snarl. "I have known what it is like to know so much more than everyone else, and I see the truth in what you say. I was saved by freeing myself from the village. But you could never fully exercise yourself in this world. Perhaps you can't be saved that way."

_I guess I should be glad he can understand partway. _Kakashi shook his head and tried to look at things more cheerfully. "Anyway," he said with a false smile, "If I already knew everything, you couldn't tell it to me, and what would we have to talk about?"

"That too." Orochimaru grinned and reached for Kakashi's pack. "I won't deny I enjoy teaching things, Puppy. Now then…" He unfolded a map of all his bases and looked over it for the most suitable one.

Kakashi took a look at the map himself. He pointed to a base on the southern part of the continent. "Now that I can, I thought I should get the opportunity to use a volcano," he explained.

"Rather close to people, isn't it?" Orochimaru indicated the Elemental Nation border that it was nearly on top of.

"Does it have a good library?" Kakashi inquired.

"Yes…"

"Then we're going."

Now it was his turn to be glared at. He laughed. "Mah, you still think like a shinobi. That's just what I don't want to be. We won't be there on business, we won't be having many interactions with people. As long as the base itself isn't regularly visited, we'll be fine." Orochimaru opened his mouth, and Kakashi continued with an even more careless and childlike tone, "Who's taking us there anyway?"

Orochimaru closed his mouth. "Dammit, Puppy," he smirked. "You were right. Those wings of yours are trouble enough. Who knows what you'd become if you used anything else?"

Kakashi refolded the map and put it back in his pack. "Mah, I can afford to let my head swell just a little now that I'm free, can't I?"

Orochimaru stood before he did and used the opportunity to ruffle his hair. Kakashi let out some joyful yips at this. The snake chuckled. "Ah, at least if we're going to be so close to people there should be all kinds of things available," he mused.

"Anything in particular?" Kakashi asked as they got into flight position, with Orochimaru wrapping his arms around Kakashi's shoulders.

"I like mint." And they were off.

.

Their flight this time was much calmer, to allow for the idle chatter that Orochimaru's comment had started and that neither of them felt like ending. Kakashi learned that when Orochimaru said mint, he meant raw mint leaves, preferably picked straight off the plant. There were a number of other plants, actually, that Orochimaru had come across in his travels and taken a fancy to. It seemed that, for all that snakes were strictly carnivorous, the Snake Sannin had always had a soft spot for plants.

Kakashi shared in turn that his taste for beef, a rather rare meat that he almost never got, had resulted from a mission of his to infiltrate a daimyo's court. The infiltration had been successful, but ultimately unnecessary as the daimyo in question was not as rich as he liked to believe. A team of Genin could have turned the economic conditions to their advantage and unseated the daimyo. Kakashi merely gave the oncoming collapse a trigger when he persuaded the daimyo to host a party even more sumptuous than usual. The result was revolution the next morning, which Kakashi did not see because he'd left that night in complete confidence of a job well done. After eating the entire platter of beef and taking the bones for himself, of course.

Orochimaru laughed. "Why wasn't a Chunin, at most, sent for that mission? It was a terrible waste of a Jonin."

Kakashi shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know! Bad intel, perhaps. Either way, I got paid, and got to sit around for a week in fancy robes, rubbing my face in some of the best-smelling books I have ever read."

"Do you actually read those dirty books of Jiraiya's?"

"Of course! They describe people feeling things which I would never feel on my own. When I read the books, I can put myself in their place, and feel those things too." Kakashi sighed wistfully for the book now in his pocket. "But yes, I was first drawn to them by the smell. I really should find out where he got them printed."

"So you read those books because you're the _opposite_ sort of person from the intended audience?" Orochimaru made sure he was hearing it correctly.

"Yes." Kakashi looked back over his shoulder. "Have you never pretended to be something you weren't, at least for a little while?"

Orochimaru went completely silent. Between that and some subtle change in his grip, Kakashi knew he'd hit a nerve. He was about to apologize when Orochimaru muttered, "Once. It didn't work."

There was quiet after that until, 5 minutes and 42 seconds later, Orochimaru indicated a good forest for hunting. They politely chatted about the pleasures of hunting, various strategies, what kinds of prey they preferred, etc. until they landed at a cliff out of site from but overlooking Orochimaru's base.

From here, there was no sign of human activity. With only a glance for a signal, they split and went around the cliff to approach the base from both sides. They kept the same pace and met at the concealed entrance at the same time, confirming no enemies. That was fun, but having to repeat the same inside the base would not be, so Kakashi swept the base from the outside. "Nothing," he confirmed. "Many spiders, a few snakes - too small for you to be interested in - and one rat which, I checked, does not have a working sense of smell. No human-sized souls."

"Sounds delicious." Orochimaru licked his lips. It was after lunchtime.

Speaking of… Kakashi approached his new partner. "Would you like to go back to the forest and hunt with me, after we've settled?" he invited. The snake seemed to be in fit shape, and they'd just proven that they had kept the basic teamwork of hunting.

Orochimaru appraised him back. "Yes, I would." This was a more meaningful exchange than any human could have known. To agree to hunt together, to match each other's skills in pursuit of food and prey and blood, was important to predatory beasts. To Kakashi, it meant they were of one pack, one family. If he'd had a tail, it would have been wagging, because Kakashi liked the idea of having his own pack together with Orochimaru. But, he knew, snakes did not hunt together. To Orochimaru, this must mean the triumph of the human part of himself. Humans hunted together too. Kakashi now realized that he'd never found out if it meant the same to humans as to wolves. He hoped so.

Orochimaru looked at him curiously. "What do wolves think of hunting together like this?" he asked.

"It means we're family, and we trust each other," Kakashi replied without hesitation. So he wouldn't have to rely on hope after all.

"Family, huh?" Orochimaru was running his tongue over his left fang again. "I think it's convenient, but rather strange. But, like everything that's strange, it's different with you." His eyes narrowed. "What sort of family do you mean?"

Kakashi shrugged _Eh, why not _and formed some of his darkness into a tail. Tails reveal many things about a canine's emotional state, and it would not do to try to connect with Orochimaru while missing a part of himself so essential for communication. It wagged excitedly, beating the air in a brief burst of frenzied activity when he answered, "With just the two of us, we would be the Alphas." His new tail continued to wag as he waited for Orochimaru's response.

Orochimaru's eyes widened, and his breathing settled into the slow pace of someone who is trying to keep their breathing under control. "The alphas…" he murmured, grinning and staring at Kakashi in that overly focused way again. Kakashi's tail wagged somewhere between nervous and excited. Orochimaru definitely knew what it meant to be the alpha pair. _But that's not exactly what I have in mind…_

Orochimaru turned halfway and looked at Kakashi out of the corner of his eye. "I'm sure that's not quite what you mean, but it sounds pleasant enough." He looked fully away now. "Let's not dawdle around."

Kakashi followed him in. The silent stone halls echoed with their footsteps. Kakashi tried to determine if this was one of the bases that had been plundered, and failed. He did not have enough information yet to know. There were no signs of obvious disturbance, like footsteps or things broken or doors left wide open. The dust revealed nothing because there barely was any. That could be explained by the heavy, closed outer doors. The air carried no human scent. The sense of mystery lifted his spirits and gave him great enjoyment as he looked around. _I should tell this to Orochimaru when we have time. _

Orochimaru led him to the lab first. This base was one of his larger ones, so it had a much better lab than usual. Unidentifiable things still curled in large glass vessels filled with water. Kakashi looked into them. They had souls still, which meant they must be still alive. But their souls had no identifying markings, almost no markings at all. _No experiences? _He rebuked Orochimaru for apparently just keeping these things here for no good reason, not even to experiment on. Being experimented on would have given them experiences, at least!

Orochimaru let him finish, then explained, "Their creation _was_ the experiment. As for them, they would have been tested if I had gotten around to it. As you know, I was interrupted."

Even so, souls without markings of any kind were just… _*shudder* _Kakashi was glad to leave that room. As befitting this lab's status as one of Orochimaru's best, it had multiple rooms. The next was a smaller affair, with desks where results could be written and microscopes where small things could be looked at. Kakashi seized his chance and opened a drawer of the records cabinet. It was empty. How confusing… He asked Orochimaru. The curiosity was getting to be too much.

The Snake Sannin wondered about the question too. "We would have to go down a level to where the main records are stored to be sure. But I agree… Lack of records would seem to indicate shinobi came here, but then they would have at least turned off the machines keeping those creations alive… Perhaps people did come here, but they were not so soft-hearted as the shinobi of Konoha and left the creations to their fates?"

Kakashi scratched his head. "Let's delay going down to the main records just yet. The mystery is killing me, and it feels good. Which, by the way, is another reason for not spreading all my senses. I would have no mystery left if I did. You must be able to imagine what that would be: a fate worse than death."

Orochimaru froze still, his eyes looking off into the hypothetical. He grimaced and returned to the here and now. His apology to Kakashi for ever questioning the wolf ninja's decision to restrain his senses was sincere, profound, and indicated not a little respect for his wisdom. It was almost funny. Kakashi tried not to laugh as he finally got through to Orochimaru.

"Mah, no need for that," he said instead. "I'm glad to see we understand and share that much. We did, back then, and it's good to confirm we still do."

Not all the desk space in this room was for use. Kakashi picked up a knickknack, what appeared to be the shed skin of a very pale snake in a box. Orochimaru asked him not to drop it. "White snakes stand for good luck. It's my good luck charm."

_Not to mention something of a family heirloom. _Well, that wasn't quite right. White snakes didn't all belong to the same family and weren't all the same kind of snake. But, no matter the species, all white snakes were rumored to share a certain specialness. It might be some kind of group heirloom. Kakashi treated it carefully.

"Come along, Puppy." Orochimaru beckoned from the opposite side of the narrow room. Kakashi walked down the narrow aisle between the desks on either side, and followed.

The next room was dimly lit, had a chair in it for Orochimaru to seat himself like a king, featured many small jars of creepy-looking things in formaldehyde, and generally resembled a room that would be used more for effect than any actual science. Orochimaru muttered something about this being the area where he usually addressed subordinates from, then took Kakashi's hand to direct him through a gap between the tables of creepy things. Once past the gap, the wolf ninja was forced to stop. He mentally whistled in respect. _He could take up interior decorating as a hobby. _

This respect was for the tables the two had just passed. Not only did they make an excellent atmosphere for intimidating people, but also served as a highly effective boundary in the room. A random subordinate might not have even realized there was more to the room beyond the tables. Kakashi had, but was still taken aback by the difference in atmosphere. That had been a good place to frighten subordinates. This was a room of **science**.

It had a cage in the center, four seals, a chair behind a shield, and absolutely nothing else. The efficiency was almost breathtaking. Kakashi could see the possibility written, it seemed, into the very seals themselves. And that cage… _Beautiful. _The walls didn't even have any of the ornate carvings that the walls of the hallways did. Just smooth, grey, featureless rock. It was so, so, very..._fascinating. _Kakashi hadn't seen many other rooms, but he guessed this had to be among the best of them all.

Orochimaru watched his expressions carefully as he looked around. "Boring, isn't it?"

Kakashi whipped around in dumbfounded horror. Orochimaru raised his hands in self-defense. "Down, Puppy, down. That was a test. You passed." He joined Kakashi in looking around. "I personally regard this as the most beautiful room here. It's empty. Emptiness begs to be filled, and I have baited it for only the best. A shame, isn't it, how few people are capable of seeing that. They lack foresight." His tone exalted in all he had wrought. It was filled with pride, and well deserved at that.

Kakashi nudged his elbow. "The seals?"

"Two of them -" Orochimaru gestured to opposite corners "- are for restraint. The other two, storage. Restraint for those subjects that would best not be caged, and storage for items they might react to." Orochimaru traced with an outstretched finger the delicate lines that ran between the seals, finally tracing them down to smaller seals beneath the shielded chair. "And those, for using chakra to regulate each of the larger ones from a safe position."

"I've never heard of seals to regulate the flow of chakra," Kakashi breathed. "Ones that feed off it, yes. But to treat chakra like common electricity, and control it the same way…"

Orochimaru huffed. "And Jiraiya was known as the seal master of Konoha. I could've taught him a few things." He disdainfully added, "That's what you get from studying the nature of chakra. A shame nobody ever thought to treat my studies with any respect."

"If the chakra in question was lightning natured, the difference could become moot. You could build a machine of ink and floor space…" Kakashi continued.

Orochimaru put his hands on Kakashi's shoulders. "Better blood than ink," he whispered into Kakashi's ear, "blood transmits both electrical and spiritual energy better."

Kakashi blinked. When had they gotten onto the same sentence? He gently pushed Orochimaru's hands away. "Perhaps…"

"No need to resist, Puppy. I like to think in harmony with you. It's good, isn't it?" Orochimaru's voice had dropped into that smoothness that sent shivers, often of inappropriate kinds, up people's backs. "You and I...could discover a whole universe…" _That's a pickup line. _

He turned and faced the Snake Sannin, looked right into his eyes. "I prefer to keep some stars for myself."

"That's all right. If you would only lend me your power…"

"Later." He smiled and tapped Orochimaru on the nose. "Be patient."

"I will be," was the reply. Orochimaru seemed pleased. Kakashi was relieved. He'd never had much practice with this kind of interaction. Maybe knowing Orochimaru made it easier, made it possible. Kakashi wondered if he should practice more.

"But first, we'll need test subjects." Orochimaru's eyes were alight again. They'd gotten to his favorite part.

.

The earth ran by underneath, with barely a crackle. Leaves bobbed in a sudden wind, making no noise. The ground was alive with living things. Each of them had a distinct scent, a separate sound, a different little spark that made them alive. The air was a stream of information, a pipeline of messages shooting straight into the brain news of what was happening in the world around. Kakashi's hands tingled with the feel of living dirt cool against his skin, and he was flying. He danced lightly from one scent to another, his nose his wings and the forest his sky. His ears twitched every so often as the knowledge of every move his hunting companion made seemed to touch his eartips.

Kakashi's legs suddenly lengthened and he left the ground, coming back down some distance away with a small furry creature centered beneath him and one hand reached back to grasp it. It made barely audible sounds of panic, not much soothed when it was transferred from a large hand to a small dark frame that was little more than legs and wings. The rodent was airlifted far from its home, to a giant underground lair that smelled of snake, into a cage. In the meantime its hunter went searching for another.

The air shifted, revealing something interesting lurking in a stand of trees. From the south and from the northeast, silent footfalls and smooth, sinuous whispers approached. The footfalls ceased several meters away, their source hidden beneath a young tree and some bushes. The intervening meters were clear. Leaves whispered against smooth skin in the branches overlooking a wall of untamed brambles. Their thorns brushed against each other at the ends. There would be no escape.

Feet lifted from the ground and cleared the bushes in a flying leap, then sank to the clear dirt and covered several meters in another long bound. Outstretched fingers narrowly missed the ends of slender hooves as they kicked up and fled from the hunter. Hunter loped after hunted, tongue out to taste the air and ears twitching with awareness. It was a long, slow, steady pace, in comparison with the frenzied racings of the prey. The prey jerked to the left, to the right, looking for a way out. It twisted left as the hunter strayed too far right, and the hunter made another leap to intercept. The prey ground its hooves into the dirt and turned a hard right.

Impenetrable brambles greeted it. There was no escape. The prey stopped, rearing and twisting to look for a way out, but a shadow descended and sunk deep fangs into its neck. As it happened, they and their contents reached one of the arteries feeding the brain. Darkness fell in seconds. It was over.

Orochimaru licked at the blood welling up from the two puncture wounds in the deer's neck, even as the rate of flow slowed and its legs stopped kicking. Kakashi looked on with pride in his eyes. That was a good killing strike, in his opinion. But, vastly more important, their teamwork had been excellent. He didn't know if Orochimaru had sensed his every movement in quite the same way, but how else could the snake have known to be here above the brambles? They hadn't agreed to take up these positions, or even to hunt at all. It just...happened. It had been natural. _Isn't 'it just happened' what everyone says when they act on instinct? _Kakashi's tail thumped against a nearby tree in time with his heartbeat. Maybe it had been all his instinct, adapting himself to whatever Orochimaru happened to be doing. That was plausible. But Kakashi hoped all the same that at least some of their performance just now had been mutual.

Orochimaru nodded. "A splendid performance," he agreed to Kakashi's unsaid words. Then a shadow came over his face and he grimaced. "Dammit!"

"What's wrong?" Kakashi's ears perked up. His tail stopped wagging and held still.

Orochimaru sighed and gestured at the fatal wounds in the deer's neck. "Serpents really aren't meant to hunt in groups, after all. Especially not venomous ones. It should be localized to the brain, but... "

Kakashi's tail started wagging again, slowly. "It should be alright. My greatest power is chemistry, after all. I can break down the venom if it would normally be dangerous." He was more concerned about Orochimaru. Did venomous snakes have the ability to digest their own venom? Come to think of it, did venomous snakes even use their venom for hunting? He didn't know.

"Hm. Well, then." Orochimaru seemed satisfied and returned to his previous good mood. "We ought to celebrate, don't you think?"

_Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. _Kakashi's tail hit the tree with great force. "Sure! So, ah...do you want to prepare the meal any specific way, then?" he asked.

"No," Orochimaru mused. "I think gutting it together and having an open campfire is more us, don't you?"

"An open campfire is best after dark," Kakashi objected.

"It's dinner, then. I'll carry it back. Why don't you fetch us a few extra rodents for lunch?"

Kakashi's tail went still again, ready for hunting. His ears twitched, giving him away. Orochimaru chuckled and picked up the ungulate without another word, carrying it back to the hideout over his shoulder.

Kakashi did return to hunting. It had lost a lot of its charm without Orochimaru there.

.

That afternoon, after enjoying a lunch of rodent and wild plants, Orochimaru unveiled his plans. In the bare room, the central cage now had barriers dividing it evenly in four parts. Orochimaru had gotten a notebook and was prepared to take notes from his seat. "If I need to," he clarified. The seat behind a shield was for the sorts of experiments he was used to running, with larger and more dangerous subjects. With rodents… He abandoned his usual caution and simply requested that Kakashi create a scent shield so the smell of snake would not panic the subjects. He sat down just over a meter from the cage and prepared to watch intently. Kakashi sat at a right angle on his left.

"That group," he gestured to Kakashi's upper right, "will be the control. They get nothing. That one -" Kakashi's upper left "- will receive a dosage of darkness of an initial volume of one centimeter cubed, at the density of water. After you put it in them, of course spread it evenly throughout their tissues. Those ones -" Kakashi's lower left "- receive the same density, at a starting volume of half a cubic centimeter. And the last, a quarter of a cubic centimeter. Prepare it now, please."

Kakashi did as requested, looking down at the frightened creatures with pity. "I understand they're only mice, but I doubt anything deserves to be treated quite like this," he sighed.

"Like what? As experimental subjects?" Orochimaru had a teasing tone in his voice.

"No. I mean with darkness. You've done painful things before, but nothing like this." Kakashi winced in sympathy for them.

Orochimaru wrote something down. "I want a full report on everything you know about your darkness after this," he ordered. "Now, on my signal."

On his signal, the cubes were lowered into the rodents as one. Kakashi confirmed, "Leave the darkness inert, correct?" as an afterthought. Orochimaru confirmed that yes, he just wanted to see what darkness did in an animal's body when it did nothing at all.

He hadn't finished speaking by the time the first rodent in the upper left quadrant fell on its side. All the mice there fell in the next few seconds, after ceasing to move and stumbling. They seemed to be losing the use of their bodies very quickly. Orochimaru wrote without taking his eyes off the rodents, requesting exact times for the first and last rodents in every quadrant to fall. He moved to the second quadrant when the first had all fallen, only for his eyes to dart back once the first mice started visibly hemorrhaging from everywhere they possible could. The second group lasted long enough for some of the mice to become distressed, and the third group started panicking, with some of the mice biting one another before curling up in a corner to die. As the last of the quarter-cube mice squeaked at each other before dragging themselves away, one of the full-cube mice collapsed. A quiet cracking announced the collapse of what was left of its ribs, and it started hemorrhaging from places it couldn't normally have bled from. The result was black and more liquid than blood normally should be, flowing even more easily than water. Orochimaru wrote all this down.

He continued to request exact times as the same continued in each of the three experimental groups, the only difference being how long it took for the process to happen. 5 minutes after the experiment started, Orochimaru ordered Kakashi to halt everything. "Keep _every single molecule _in their bodies still," he snapped with finality. "I need to look at this very closely. Very, very closely."

"Be quick," Kakashi warned. "This is what happens from the mere existence of darkness in a living thing. Even if I use it to keep them stable, things will continue to happen." Equally as importantly, if Orochimaru was done quickly Kakashi wouldn't have to keep watching this for very long. He had felt it for the past five minutes as every tissue in their bodies broke and dissolved, and he was not going to recover his appetite in time for dinner at this rate.

Orochimaru had no such limits to what he considered to be beautiful, but was nonetheless quick and efficient in his gathering of observational data. Kakashi distracted himself by marveling at his capacity for writing very quickly and very neatly at the same time. He'd always thought Orochimaru would have more of a scrawl, because… Well, wasn't that what everyone who needed to write fast developed? Doctors and scientists were renowned for having distinctive, nearly illegible scrawls. Orochimaru seemed to have gone the other way, economizing on time by refusing to make any mark that wasn't necessary. His handwriting was a little sparse, and perhaps some lines weren't as long as they should have been, but every kanji was readable and more open than usual.

Really, he should have expected better from hands like those. Kakashi held everything still, allowed nothing to move or fall into disarray while Orochimaru watched and wrote, least of all his own attention. The Snake Sannin really had great hands. They were very neat, and delicate, but strong too. They were hands that could handle anything with just the right pressure, a light touch or a strong blow. _He should play an instrument with those. _Kakashi contemplated other, more personal uses for hands like that, but found those ideas to be boring. It would be much more interesting to see Orochimaru play something like the flute.

Finally Orochimaru put the pen down and Kakashi sensed he was done. He immediately wrapped all the remains up in a ball of darkness and threw them outside, without waiting for the snake's approval or disapproval of such a course of action. The control group, of course, was perfectly healthy and alive still. Orochimaru would probably have liked to keep them as snacks, but Kakashi didn't bother finding out what his companion wanted to do before insisting that the mice be returned to their homes. His stomach was still not happy with what he had seen, and it must have shown in his eyes, for Orochimaru agreed.

Kakashi then dragged Orochimaru outside and into a tree, determined to rehabilitate his mood for dinner. Orochimaru was more than happy to sit with him, legs swinging and hands entwined, watching the sun set together. They said nothing. The colors deepened, blurred together, and faded. They seemed almost to deepen by taking feelings and thoughts from the two humans who sat watching, and to fade by putting those feelings and thoughts to rest. When dark came Kakashi's hand was loose in Orochimaru's grip, and he was ready for dinner.

.

**A/N: It's probably obvious by now that I am not a super dedicated fan. My knowledge of geography in the Narutoverse is limited to: The Land of Wind is west of the Land of Fire, they have the Land of Rivers between them, Amegakure is somewhere to the south, and there's another one of the 5 Great Elemental nations bordering the country Amegakure is in. I get vague southeast vibes whenever I think about the Land of either Grass or Rice Paddies, wherever it was that Orochimaru founded Otogakure. That is the grand total of my knowledge of geography. Expect incredible, massive vagueness. **


	4. Search For The Lost

When dark came and Kakashi climbed down the tree for dinner, his first action was to squeeze Orochimaru's hand tightly and sigh. His second action was to break out of the snake's grip, turn around so they were face to face, and insist he never ask Kakashi to do anything like that again because Kakashi wasn't going to.

Orochimaru was still the whole time. "You seem determined, Puppy," he stated when Kakashi was done.

Kakashi pressed a hand into his forehead. "I'm a demon. My entire nature is against the structure of reality. I happen to _like_ the structure of reality. I will not purposefully pit myself against it again." He took the hand away from his forehead and gave Orochimaru a hard stare that said _We're done here_, and turned back. "I'll make the fire. You get the deer." The night air was cool and still and did not hold the last screams of rats inside whose cells reality was splitting.

Kakashi went around back to the cliff overlooking the hideout, and Orochimaru went inside without another word. This time he sat at the cliff's base, where long years of rock tumbling down and lying cracked in heaps had ensured there wasn't a lot of flammable debris, but he swept the area clear anyway before sitting down. It felt strangely appropriate to be around broken things as he put his head in his hands and tried to pet himself without moving them.

_I've done worse. _No, he really hadn't. Murder and such, even torture, was A Thing that was meant to exist as a possibility. _At least they died without too much pain. _And now their little mousy souls are missing from the system, because they will never make it to mousy heaven. _Hush. Don't think about it. It's done. Get the fire started. _Kakashi remembered some noteworthy markings he'd felt on their mouse souls, before those souls utterly ceased to exist. He desperately tried not to think as he went to the edge of the surrounding woods and gathered wood.

He had no idea what to do with it when he came back. Of course he _knew_ how to make fire the old fashioned ways, for when the slightest spark of chakra was to be kept hidden in enemy territory, but was he really going to have to find and carry appropriate spark rocks with him everywhere from now on? Kakashi found this almost funny. He'd left the human world to be able to use his powers more, and here he'd lost one!

It would have been appropriate. But, he was what he was, and weren't demons supposed to be creatures of fire? Many details of the stories he'd heard of demons over the years rang false when they conflicted with the inexplicable knowledge he had of his own kind, but that part of the stories never had. If it wasn't false, then it must be true in some way. Kakashi only had to find the way.

After much deliberation and sorting of possibilities, Kakashi realized one way that could work. He produced a small ball of darkness from his hand and studied it. It was invisible, in the air. It was liquid. It was solid. It was stretchy. It would not bend if an entire world's weight was placed on a thin sheet. And… Kakashi tested if it had yet more physical properties that could be adjusted at will. It stilled, and the air condensed; it was cold. Add a little agitation instead of subtracting, and..._eep! _The blast of heat energy that radiated from it would have singed Kakashi's hair, if his hair could have been singed. He settled for carefully tangling it around the sticks of the firepit and doing that again. They all took to the flames at once. The fire would probably burn out before they were done with anything. _Ah, well…_

Kakashi went off to fetch a reserve bundle of sticks. Then, he put his hands out to the fire. He wondered if it felt the same on his hands as on human hands. He'd long since discovered that extremes of heat did not affect him the way they did humans. Neither did extremes of cold, for that matter. If fire could not burn or damage him, did its warmth feel different in other ways? When he sat around a fire with friends and they all thought they shared the same experience, did they really?

Orochimaru came then, holding some wrapped bundles. Kakashi took one and, unwrapping the sliced meat, laid it on a platform of darkness above the fire. Darkness could make one hell of a shield, or it could not. He chose it to be permeable to heat, as if it did not even exist.

The cooking of dinner was a silent affair. They sat looking not at each other, but into the flames. Orochimaru's eyes glittered in the firelight. Okay, maybe that wasn't exactly true that they didn't look at each other. Kakashi found his eyes drifting over to his companion quite readily, and did not stop them. He wondered what Orochimaru saw in the firelight. For himself, Kakashi thought he saw little souls in the flames. Little lights. He studied Orochimaru's eyes instead.

The smell of meat to drool for soon came off the fire. Orochimaru got the first, then Kakashi the second slice. Orochimaru studied it for a while before taking a kunai and slicing it in half. Half a slice was easier to swallow whole, and making two swallows instead of one allowed him to keep pace with Kakashi, whose highly efficient wolf teeth tore the meat to shreds quickly. When he was done, Kakashi grimaced. He was burning up with curiosity and _had _to know!

"Would you hold your hands out to the fire?" he asked Orochimaru. The snake complied. Kakashi looked at his soul then, at the part of it that was experiencing this sensation, copied it for himself. His shoulders slumped as an invisible weight was taken off them. _Thank...whoever there is to thank, it's the same! _

Orochimaru took his hands from the fire. "What did you learn?" he asked.

"That we have the same experience of warmth," Kakashi replied. "We wouldn't have the same experience of heat - I don't suffer from being next to a fire style jutsu, for example. But at least I can feel this little warmth the same way as anyone else."

"What would happen if you stuck your hand in the fire right now?" Orochimaru asked with the sort of tone that implied _Do it, do it now. _

"It feels like this warmth, only more so," Kakashi evasively answered. Orochimaru continued to stare. That wasn't enough of an answer.

Kakashi reached out to touch the nearest flickering flame. It dodged away from his finger, then returned, and instantly Kakashi's finger was on fire. He tilted his arm downwards so the upward-pointing flame could find purchase, and his whole arm was engulfed. Kakashi tilted his head and set his entire hair on fire. This was another part of what it meant to be a creature of the flames. He answered Orochimaru's wide eyed stare with, "I'm very flammable, that's what happens."

"But it doesn't burn?" Orochimaru's writing hand twitched.

"No. It never burns. It just...continues to exist for as long as I let it until I put it out."

"Fire is the visible evidence of a chemical reaction, and burning is the reaction. If it doesn't burn, how does it exist?" Orochimaru looked as if he badly wanted the demon senses to see what was going on for himself.

Kakashi looked closely. "That's not what I mean by burn. I meant that it never causes harm, never uses up, destroys, or alters in any way my darkness. It's still very warm, and it could still be extinguished by taking away the air."

"_Fascinating._" Orochimaru put on another slice of deer. "It doesn't seem that you conflict with this part of reality."

Kakashi looked at him sharply from the corner of his eye. _I would if my darkness was inside the flame, _he didn't say. He resisted the urge to provide an answer successfully and sat silently, glaring at his serpentine companion.

Orochimaru seemed confused. "What? I want to know more about you. It's not wrong to want to know more information about my friend, is it?"

"It's not that," Kakashi finally answered. He classified his feelings as a mixture of disappointment, sadness, and regret. Sometimes, like earlier, they understood what they were talking about so well they could answer each other's questions before being asked. Other times, like now, they looked at each other in bafflement across the invisible fact that they were _different. _"Pretend you were more like me, like other soft-hearted Konoha shinobi," he asked. _Does he know me well enough to do that? _

Orochimaru set to work puzzling out what he meant. Kakashi realized that his efforts would be helped greatly if Kakashi were not still on fire. He cast his senses out for water, and found some a great distance away. _What kind of creature of fire can't put it out? _He pushed at the fire on his arm, willing it to go away, go away. The fire did not shrink and disappear, but it did move.

_Fascinating. _Kakashi raised his other forearm that was not on fire and made a pulling motion. The fire was not rooted into his darkness. It rose up, flames braiding together now that they lacked a source. Kakashi pulled all the other fire off himself and gently guided it back into the campfire that was dying down. Some wood exploded under the new infusion of heat. Kakashi was now flame-free and, he checked, only as warm as if he'd had those parts of him facing the fire very near.

Orochimaru scooted over and sat directly against Kakashi, wrapping an arm around his waist too. "Wolves are warm and tactile, and you removed an obstacle to my touching you, so I can only assume this is what you want?"

_*sigh* _"Close. I was thinking more of comfort. You are aware of what comfort is?"

Orochimaru blinked. "You...wanted me to…?" He seemed very confused at the idea of seeking comfort from another person. "Why?"

Now it was Kakashi's turn to be confused. "Have you never been lonely? Never wanted someone to be there with you to fix something hurting?"

Orochimaru went still and very, very silent. The look in his eyes as he faced Kakashi changed somewhat. He seemed to be looking at something else that was not Kakashi, but his other arm came up and he sat taller to cradle Kakashi against his chest. Kakashi breathed in his suddenly anxious smell. _He has. I reminded him. _He didn't like the sound of Orochimaru's heart beating fast and wrongly in his chest. Well, if a little pain was what it took to teach the snake empathy, Kakashi would let him feel it.

Orochimaru's hands suddenly gripped Kakashi, forced him away. Yet Orochimaru wrapped his arms around himself immediately afterwards as if he didn't _really _want to let go. "Fuck you, Jiraiya," he whispered hatefully to the flames.

Now it was Kakashi's turn to figure things out. What comfort did Orochimaru want, and what comfort would he actually accept? He decided to move closer to Orochimaru and sit very close to him, almost touching but not quite. He also adopted an open posture, not curled up as Orochimaru was, available if the snake wanted to resume their embrace after all. _Open. Available. Give him the choice. _Orochimaru liked having his own choices.

The Snake Sannin turned away from the flames and looked at him, at _all _of him. He traced Kakashi's expression with his eyes, then Kakashi's shoulders, moving down to his arms, and waist. He narrowed his eyes in a suspicious look. Kakashi sensed a rising agitation in his soul and wondered what Orochimaru was thinking. It would be wrong to use his senses to listen in and find out that way. He kept this position, waiting for Orochimaru to tell him.

The snake's eyes were set in disbelief. He glanced away from Kakashi, drawing back. Kakashi took a chance and reached forward, pulled on his sleeve. Orochimaru's eyes were back, and they looked almost accusing, as if Kakashi was trying to lie to him. But Kakashi wasn't trying to lie at all. "Orochimaru -"

The snake lunged forward and pushed Kakashi to the ground, falling hard on top of him in the process. Kakashi found them suddenly a bit close, with Orochimaru's eyes staring into his from mere centimeters away. His hands pinned Kakashi to the ground, and his eyes bored into Kakashi's, searching. They glittered like some yellow crystal. Searching.

Honestly, it was strange and not entirely comfortable to have Orochimaru this close. But it wasn't bad either, and Kakashi would put up with the strangeness as long as nothing else happened. He wrapped his arms around Orochimaru and returned the embrace, pulling Orochimaru down so they could no longer see each other's faces. It was a hug. Just...horizontal. Kakashi closed his eyes and pulled him in closer. _I am here, and I really am available, and I really won't leave, _he tried to say with everything except words. Now it was he who held Orochimaru down. The snake was forced to concede, although he still did not relax and allow himself to meld with Kakashi. That happened a good 5 minutes later, as the last of the firelight died down to faintly glowing embers and Kakashi sent darkness out to put aside their remaining dinner and protect it from spoiling. Eating could wait.

Even the agitation in Orochimaru's soul, which had been rising since this started, calmed. He buried his head more deeply into Kakashi's shoulders, whispered something to himself about Kakashi being a good puppy and _better_, and drifted off.

Kakashi ran his hand soothingly up and down Orochimaru's back and moved aside a small rock he could barely feel under his head. This was going to be a long night.

.

No it wasn't. It was a very short night. Kakashi had just closed his eyes and settled in to enjoy the feel of Orochimaru's heart against his own when he felt that heartbeat being taken away from him. He whimpered and gripped tighter, even opening his eyes despite the light. Orochimaru was still there, but had gotten up and now had his arms propped under himself and against Kakashi's shoulders so their hearts no longer met but their faces did. Kakashi didn't know if he liked that more, less, or the same.

"We should...get up, Puppy," Orochimaru murmured distantly while staring. His expression told Kakashi that this was a pleasant surprise, that he hadn't really hoped for this, but there was hope starting to grow in it. Getting up was an unpleasant afterthought, said more because he was supposed to say it than for any other reason.

"Why?" Kakashi asked. He knew as well as Orochimaru did that they had no duties anymore, not if they didn't choose to. The snake could not give him an answer. But his soul did get very agitated. He lowered his head into Kakashi's shoulders again, but his heartbeat was too fast. It was not the matching heartbeat that had sent Kakashi into sleep, but something else, something more dangerous. Kakashi hoped he was not proving Orochimaru right to disbelieve that he was _really _available. "Or...maybe we should. Just a little." The tenseness all down Orochimaru's body scared him more than a little.

Orochimaru pushed himself up again. His hand slid down Kakashi's side. "If you want to." Kakashi nodded _Yes please. _Orochimaru moved his hands out to the ground around Kakashi's shoulders to brace him as he rolled over and got up completely. He sighed instinctively as he did. Kakashi felt bad. He thought _Apology _as he got to his feet too.

"Sleeping out isn't good for our hygiene. I should take a shower," Orochimaru justified. He left without saying anything further or looking at Kakashi. Well, at least he hadn't looked angry. Kakashi always knew when he'd brought up something that was truly painful because Orochimaru got angry, as if he had a direct pain to anger converter in his head. _He probably does. Built and installed it himself over the years. _So the snake should be just fine since he wasn't angry this morning.

Kakashi cooked the remainder of the deer for breakfast and brought it in. He met Orochimaru, who was much less agitated. "Ah. Thank you, Puppy." They ate together without so much as hinting at anything that had happened this morning.

Kakashi eventually elbowed his companion gently in the ribs. "I know. Your first instinct will always be to reach for information, not stop and be all cuddly. I know." He smiled at Orochimaru to show that everything was all right and he did not expect him to. "But could you be cuddly sometimes? Perhaps one of every three instances I seem upset, or whenever I ask?"

Orochimaru smirked. "That is more realistic. I can try."

"Good, that's all I want." Kakashi turned and sat upright. "About what you asked last night…"

He held up a hand and produced a small ball of darkness. "Perhaps you've never made the connection, but you surely know it. Every creation myth ever agrees that this world, the neutral place, is an offshoot of the divine. That means there is a strong connection still, and the divine and the neutral can mingle freely and go back and forth and fit in each other's worlds and all that.

"My kind is separate. Some religions out there suggest that humans who are evil will go to Hell, and Hell is where demons are. They're wrong." Kakashi swept his hand out to the side as if to push all that away. "Demons are completely separate from the divine. There is no way either neutral or divine souls can go where demons come from, because demons are entirely separate, and whatever place we issue from is outside the influence of divine forces.

"This neutral world, having separation between souls so souls can't come into contact with each other, is the only place where we could coexist." Kakashi picked up Orochimaru's hand. "Do you understand that we can't really touch? Not in soul to soul contact. I'd destroy you. This is like having a very thin sheet between us to prevent true contact. It's the only way.

"Those mice have utterly ceased to exist. They were destroyed as soon as I breached this barrier. Like water meeting fire, wherever darkness meets divinity this reality begins to go wrong, and darkness is very sturdy. Even being in them and not acting at all, they broke down inside, all their molecules and complex structures falling apart. I introduced wrongness to them, and my wrongness is more powerful than their traces of rightness, so they broke.

"In conclusion, I don't belong here, and I don't like that fact because here is where you are and where I've always lived, so do not force me to face the truth of it before I must." Kakashi sat back, panting. His voice had been rising, louder and more frantic and faster as he went on, and now Kakashi realized that at the end he'd been almost begging. If he must beg to get Orochimaru to accept this, he would. He searched for the hoped-for acceptance in Orochimaru's eyes.

Orochimaru stared back as if looking for something in Kakashi's eyes right back. "We would never meet in heaven?" he concluded in a whisper. "Not that I would go to heaven with all I've done, but…"

"No, you would, and no, I would have to invent a soul shield first, and that's even if I could get access to the divine part of the world." Kakashi raised a hand. Lowered it. Raised it again. "We have a few decades here, at least. I get to belong to you for that long." _And all my friends. And everyone I've ever loved. And the illusion that I can live here. _He moved his hand forward a little, toward Orochimaru's, but didn't dare reach that far. His breath trembled. Who knows what would have happened if not for his ninja training.

"You wanted to know what it is to have this knowledge, these senses? This is it." His eyes clouded over with excess water. "It's like reaching the middle of your life and realizing that the same current sweeping you toward what you were meant to be now sweeps you away from it, and dreading that you will lose everything, only I get to know this at the very beginning of an existence that lasts for infinity, and the feeling is much stronger and it never goes away and I get to repeat the actual loss forever and ever while possessing just enough power to get assumptions that I'm omnipotent. Wouldn't I stop this if I was?!" Kakashi thought of everything his father had ever taught, everything he'd ever believed. Comrades. Friends. Loyalty. All were bad lessons, very bad lessons, for a demon to learn. And yet, they were the only things he could keep, so shouldn't he hold onto those beliefs as close as possible? "I'm never beyond the reach of Hell," he whispered through tears that finally burst out.

He'd feared this. Dinner was supposed to be a celebration, so he'd glared and refused to say anything. But today was not a celebration so Kakashi gave Orochimaru the answer he'd asked for, but not one that either of them had ever wanted, and pressed his hands against the sides of his head like his brain would explode and cried like someone terribly lost.

_I shouldn't have said all that. It would have been better if… _If he never told even the one soul who understood him most how scared and lost and not-omnipotent he was? To be sure, there was nothing Orochimaru could do. Kakashi gripped his head harder. All he'd wanted was to pass his burden to someone else. Why would he do that to anyone, let alone someone he cared for? _Selfish… It really would have been better to keep my problems to myself…_

Orochimaru's arms wrapped around him, first gently, then determinedly. This was the worst idea Kakashi had ever had. He didn't know what he was doing. He never would find out. Had it been scary earlier? Kakashi wished he could go back to lying there in the dirt next to the fire and forget. Orochimaru seized one of his hands and tore it away from his head.

"Maybe there are some downsides to the immortality I've been searching for," Orochimaru acknowledged.

Kakashi's continuing sobs turned at once to explosive laughter. The only difference was in how they sounded; they didn't actually feel any different to him as he still seized again and again, his breath forcing itself from his lungs as if he was trying to perform CPR on himself. Orochimaru squeezed him tighter and muttered something that might have been "Shut up!" but Kakashi couldn't. The only time he could have shut up was before, and he couldn't reverse the flow of time.

Eventually he got his self control together and dealt a knockout blow to the breathing centers of his brain, stopping the problem entirely. He slumped against Orochimaru and curled all his senses inwards, trying to blind himself again. It worked but did nothing. Ordinary human senses were sufficient to perceive eternity and how terrible it was. He gave Orochimaru a hug back and knocked himself out instead.

.

Kakashi dreamed of Obito. Obito, who had seen the same things he had. Obito, who had been destroyed by what he saw. Obito, who Kakashi had saved by returning him to the here and now, which was safe like his birth-den and the pack and his mother curled around him. There was something curled around him. Was it his mother? No, it had scales. Was it Orochimaru?

Kakashi looked. A membrane slid back to reveal a green eye with a slit pupil. No, it wasn't Orochimaru. Kakashi closed his eyes again. Obito had been silly. You don't stay out in the deep, dark rain or the storm. You go from den to den if you must move. Den to den, and at each one there was a mother or a serpent or a mother serpent waiting to make you warm. He missed Obito. Where was Obito? Had he made it to the next den? _Obito! Are you still lost? Let me help! _There was no answer.

_Be safe. _He yawned. Warmth. Scales. Orochimaru? He looked again. The green snake eye was still there, watching him. One of Orochimaru's summons? He raised his head and tried to sit up. The snake finally uncoiled from where it had been holding him, hissed loudly, and vanished in a puff of smoke. Kakashi rubbed his eyes. Orochimaru came in with tea.

Kakashi looked up and gratefully took a cup. It was hot, but he didn't burn. He drank it slowly. Orochimaru sat across from him, silent and watching. Kakashi stopped sipping and looked back.

"You look grim today." Even more so than the Snake Sannin usually did, Kakashi thought.

"You just had a nervous breakdown on the floor of my home," Orochimaru answered.

Kakashi stirred his tea slowly. "I was lost." He took a sip. It was good tea. "But now I'm not spreading my thoughts so far, and I'm here, and I'm not." He remembered what his fear had been of. Infinity was, by definition, too much for any mortal mind. It didn't make any sense to try to handle something like that with a tool so ill suited for the task. Best set his mind to things it could handle and handle well, like today.

"Besides, I wasn't even entirely correct," he added. "Technically, the fact that I no longer have any memory of an existence before this one means that whoever I was before is _dead. _So it is possible for a demon to unpack their burden of time, after all. I get to start over, even if it is still much longer than a human lifetime before that happens."

Orochimaru continued to watch him carefully as if waiting for Kakashi to go stark raving mad at any moment. They sipped their tea in tense silence.

When he was done Kakashi scratched just below his favorite ear. So he'd unpacked his burdens and returned to shelter. Now what? He worried for Orochimaru. "Are you okay?"

Orochimaru's face went through several different iterations of angry bafflement, as if he was trying to decide how to say it. "...No." He did not say it.

Kakashi heard the stinging rebuke anyway. "I'm sorry," he apologized insufficiently. "I needed - no, no I didn't, I just wanted - to get everything out. Before I broke under the strain of thinking too much alone."

"Well, thank you for that." Orochimaru put their cups back on the tray he'd brought them on, picked it up, and left.

He came back, of course. What else was there to do? There was yet more awkward silence. Kakashi scratched below his favorite ear again. Now that he'd had a break in his thoughts, had emerged from them, everything he'd said hours ago seemed ridiculous. Yes, the past ran through him like a string of beads. Yes, other people would eventually run out of beads and get the chance to pick them all back up, run them again and again, while he never would. But at least they ran _through_ him, and not below or above, and he got to think of them and hold them in his mind as things that had happened, that still existed and would always exist as long as he remembered.

"I feel rather silly," he admitted. "Sometimes things seem very important for a while, you drown in the thought of them, and when it's over they weren't important at all. I can never tell whether their temporary importance was a moment of clarity or the opposite."

Orochimaru still leaned against the door, arms crossed. "I hope it's the opposite," he murmured, not looking at Kakashi. "Immortality is what I've always dreamed of, and according to you it's hell. You would know…"

_What have I done? _Kakashi felt even worse, even more foolish. "No I don't." He shook his head. "Like I said, thoughts aren't reliable, or feelings. Not even mine. Don't take me too seriously. I shouldn't have taken myself so seriously. I can't even understand what I was talking about before, can't feel that sense of importance now."

Orochimaru looked at him from the sides of his eyes. "Reach into the past and get that feeling back. Isn't that one of your powers?"

Kakashi chuckled sheepishly. "And there we run into the little problem, just a very small one," he held his fingers a centimeter apart, "that I don't want to feel like that again. I can't tell if that feeling was reality, or if this is, and I didn't like it, so…"

Orochimaru looked in disbelief. "I understand that," he whispered. "Reality is slippery." He looked angry all of a sudden. "This is why I've always searched for immortality, so I could _finally! _pin down this cursed thing." He pushed himself off the wall with purpose. "I'm going to take another look at those destroyed mice, see what this broken reality of yours looks like. Perhaps it's less slippery."

Kakashi shivered. He wasn't about to tell Orochimaru that he shouldn't, and kept to himself how unpleasant and wrong it was to see what had happened, but he wasn't about to pretend to see them the same way Orochimaru did. He found them where he'd thrown them, and offered directions, but no more. He also wasn't about to look into Orochimaru's mind, see what he thought or felt about Kakashi now, though he was sorely tempted. Nothing of what he could see was positive. Caution, certainly. What else would Kakashi say to devastate his dreams? Wariness - Kakashi himself must seem different now, less predictable. But was there maybe disappointment too? And other, worse things? _I should have kept my troubles to myself. _That was the shinobi way. But he hadn't wanted to be a shinobi anymore.

He shook it off. It would do no good to stand here wondering. Kakashi decided to explore the base. He took a step toward the door, and stopped. Something very visible and very small tickled his awareness, drawing his attention. But it disappeared before he could get a good look at it. Kakashi kept his senses extended anyway, all the way out to where Orochimaru was picking his way through the rocks beyond the cliff. _What was that? A spark? _More importantly, where did it go? Kakashi left the room and ran, following his memory of where it had been. He kept looking as he did so, looking for where and how it had gone. Things couldn't just vanish from a demon's senses like that.

He picked up speed until the patterns in the halls were too blurry to see and the lights set at intervals flashed by and made his eyes hurt to look at. Kakashi was startled to, when a stray thought snuck in about his earlier dream with Obito, see the Kamui dimension in a quick flash. There was no dark thing there. Maybe it had changed its nature, changed what it was? No, nothing could change what it really was. How then? How? And what?

Kakashi rooted himself into the stone with his chakra, coming to a full stop instantly. His eyes no longer hurt. It was the library. There were books here, and several desks on which to open them. The desks were currently covered with open books, of course. Kakashi resisted the temptation to find out why they were still open, what had happened to the last ones to open them. He swept his gaze over the shelves. Nothing stirred except dust swept into the air when he opened the door. There was certainly no living thing in here. Had it been living? Kakashi searched his memories. It'd been ambiguous, too unclear to make out without more information. Paradoxically, the uncertainty relaxed him, because it wasn't uncertain at all. He only knew of one thing that could be ambiguous, and he did not fear ghosts at all. If there were other ambiguous things his instincts had not rang an alarm for them.

Kakashi's nose twitched. He approached the nearest table and picked up the candle on it, slowly. He inspected the wick from all angles. Did it smell recently burnt?

No, the _candle _did not. But as a shinobi, he knew better than to distrust the smell of a small flame burning recently. Where could a small flame burn, if not on a candle? He saw the books again.

Kakashi reached out to the ones on the table, searched their contents. They were just recipe books for various useful concoctions. He didn't expect much and didn't get it. The books of real interest were the ones on the shelves, at least some of which he could tell were fiction by the way he looked at them and saw deepness, like a whole other world hidden inside. He pulled one down, searched its inner world. There was nothing.

In this way he searched all the fiction books. The small flame had not disappeared into any of them. He sighed, and lifted his fingers to rest on the shelf as he took a break.

That was exactly the moment whatever had been in the room this whole time walked out. Kakashi stopped, his fingers hovering over the shelf. He turned and looked at the door behind him. Nothing was very much changed. He wouldn't have noticed something so subtle if he hadn't been so used to the feel of it by now. _How did I not sense that? No matter; where is it going? _

His fingers never came to rest on the book they would have rested on, which was a real shame. It'd walked out too early. _searching..._

.

**A/N: This chapter is brought to you by Not The Slightest Clue What I Am/Was Doing. Everything Kakashi said about times when things seem vastly important is 100% author tract, as is his complete failure to understand what he'd said in the previous scene. I have no idea what I was talking about, can't feel the mood I was trying to convey there, but I remember it seeming important so I'll leave it in. Besides, it's well written at least. Not to mention, if I had anyone to share my stories with besides you anonymous lot, I would not be able to tell that person a single thing about what's going to happen in this story. The only thing I kind of know about is the ghost, and I thought of that before I had the dream that inspired New Life. That's two summers ago. I've had plenty of time to forget about what's supposed to be going on with it by now. Don't hold your breath for the ghost to come back. Or maybe do; I have no idea. **

**Amendment to the above: This chapter is brought to you by Not The Slightest Clue What I Am/Was/Will Be Doing. This story is _guaranteed _to be far less coherent than its sister story, and not just because it did not originate from coherency in the first place. It would make much more sense as a story if I had dreamed it. Have fun!**


	5. Leave It All Behind

**A/N: Could've uploaded this last night, but decided sleep was more important.**

.

Kakashi searched the whole base. He personally ran to every room (the records on the lower level were intact, he noted), sent his darkness everywhere he could not go, everything. Whatever it was seemed to be gone. No, not gone. He was pretty sure it wasn't truly gone. But he had seen nothing strange happening, no sign of intention. He sat down outside the front entrance and scratched his head, sighing. _Mah, I'm getting paranoid. Why shouldn't Orochimaru's bases be haunted? I should be wondering why I haven't met some unquiet soul before. It's harmless. _

Such a judgment could all too easily be proven wrong, which is why Jonin-level shinobi knew to always report something unusual even if they rationalized it to be harmless. That is why he found himself about a minute later asking Orochimaru if the snake had seen anything interesting in the mouse remains.

"I have," Orochimaru responded. Kakashi raised his eyebrows. He hadn't expected his companion to find anything.

The snake clarified, "They're mostly gone by now. Their innards had completely liquefied, remember? The plants must have absorbed at least a little of their remains."

Now Kakashi understood where this was going. "Let me guess. Hmm...The plants are flourishing?"

Orochimaru smirked. "It's been less than 24 hours. They haven't had time to show flourishing. But, nothing negative has happened to them. I assume you removed your darkness when you threw them away, and it doesn't seem like any traces are left."

"Of course not!" Kakashi was horrified at the idea. "It's my soul. Souls don't fall apart and leave pieces of themselves wherever they go. Why would you need to disprove that?"

"I haven't studied souls before, except when I needed to for my more depraved techniques, and none of them were demonic. I don't know these things," Orochimaru deflected with a shrug.

"...You seem well," Kakashi dared.

"Hush." It was a mild denial. The next would not be.

"Well, at any rate, this base is haunted. I'm glad you've discovered I'm not poisonous," Kakashi retreated to safer ground.

"Haunted?" Orochimaru looked at him more closely. "Why does this need mentioning?"

"This is the first ghost I've seen," Kakashi answered. "I did realize it was a little strange that I haven't seen more. Should there have been restless souls in the other hideout?"

"Yes," Orochimaru admitted without shame. "Hm. Intriguing."

Kakashi's tail wagged happily. As long as Orochimaru was intrigued, he couldn't possibly feel negatively. Intrigue was a strictly good feeling for the Snake Sannin.

"Kakashi?"

"Yeah?"

"How long can your memory last?"

"I would think it depends on the same factors that determine how long a normal person's memory lasts. Importance, emotion, being first or last, dumb luck...I can't say. Why do you ask?"

"Kakashi?"

"Hm?"

"Will you remember a few decades for very long?"

Kakashi's tail faltered. He blinked away surprise. "_These _few decades, I would remember forever."

Orochimaru turned away. "I doubt that."

Kakashi opened his mouth to say something, probably, since there was no other reason for him to be opening his mouth. Orochimaru cut him off. "Don't you have a volcano to enjoy?"

Kakashi closed his mouth. He guessed he did. His tail wagged low and to the side. It said _Lonely_. "Maybe I do." His tail picked back up. "I'll take temperature measurements of my skin. See how it absorbs heat, keeps heat, gets rid of it. Maybe I'll take some other materials with me and investigate the heat properties of darkness-stitched material in general. Could be useful as armor."

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Don't flatter or placate me. It doesn't look good on you."

Kakashi's tail drooped again. "I...hope you figure things out." He shuffled awkwardly, then turned and walked away. Tears pricked at his eyes for some reason, and Orochimaru's gaze felt bad. _He's not like me. He can't be. I can't share my problems with him, ever. _That felt bad to admit. _I should have stayed in my nice, comfortable human life. _That wasn't possible. Not even momentary hope for sympathy from his own kind was possible, given that Kakashi's mysterious sense of how his kind normally was told him his existence was unique. He walked to the forest, then ran through it, keeping to the ground. He made his entire way to the nearby volcano in this fashion. It took so long, but it was much more human.

Night was approaching by the time he got there, after detouring to a nearby human settlement for some scraps of cloth to fulfill his promise with. He saturated all his scraps with darkness, physically forcing their molecules to move around like normal, and tilted backward. He dove awkwardly into a small spout of lava. It was _hot. _He swam into it, straining all his muscles and making it maybe a few inches before he had to extend wings and fins to propel himself. It was molten rock after all.

His skin instantly adjusted to become the same temperature as whatever it touched, he discovered. The extra molecular speed made everything easier to keep moving, and it was no trouble at all to hold everything together. The same applied to the materials as well as his body. Kakashi realized this kind of experiment couldn't be scientifically valid since all the variables measured were manipulated ones. There was no natural phenomena to be found in him. He closed his eyes and drifted in the molten rock. It was _crushing _down here. That was good.

He slept in the earth's own heart blood, gathered only a kilometer beneath its skin.

.

The next morning, Kakashi woke up at precisely the time he always woke up. He'd never undone the automatic wakeup he'd programmed himself with to make it easier. He didn't now. _I'd better go back. That green-eyed one with the blue scales wasn't interested in talking at all. I can't leave Orochimaru with such poor company. _So Kakashi went back. It would be awkward, and might be painful, but he would so he did.

Orochimaru had raided the pack for all the ramen Kakashi had brought from Konoha. He was doing his best to enjoy it. "Hello, Puppy." Kakashi could tell his best was not quite enough.

"You know, someday, I'll figure out how to make a nickname for you," Kakashi retorted with some effort. "Neither your name nor your nature lends itself easily, but I will."

Orochimaru drained the broth in a long gulp. "How was the volcano?"

"Crushing, hot, and too dense to navigate without extra limbs of infinite strength," Kakashi answered. He sat down next to Orochimaru and reclined against the rock, his hands behind his head. "I expected its heat to be soothing, but I was surprised. The best part is actually the pressure. It's programmed into this body to find that pleasurable. Must be the influence of the womb."

"I've noticed that." Orochimaru did not clarify where.

"I did what I said I would. Here they are." He produced and handed to Orochimaru a scrap of silk from a custom kimono shop, leather, metal, and sturdier cloth he'd found leftover from mending pants. "The material didn't matter at all, since none of them would have survived the magma without me. This wasn't really a test of material, but of my darkness. The intense heat made it easier to keep their molecules moving normally, and it was almost nothing to restrain them from moving too fast. _Anything _can survive a volcano, as long as I can influence it."

"Details, please."

They passed a solid hour talking over the data, with Orochimaru interrupting his own analyses every so often to discuss possible applications. Kakashi lost count of how many times he repeated to his serpentine companion that it would only work if he, Kakashi, was there, so there was no possible application for people who weren't Orochimaru. Orochimaru seemed to like ignoring that inconvenient fact. Eventually Kakashi gave up and let him pretend he knew things that could be lorded over other people.

It was pleasant. The food was pleasant, the company was pleasant, and the day was pleasant. Kakashi noticed he had trouble seeing the sun. _The sun is divine, as is the moon, _he reminded himself. Of course he wouldn't be able to. It was nice and warm on his face anyway, not burning. As long as he had such a fine shield, he and the sun got along just fine.

Kakashi remembered to mention at some point that the records all seemed intact, nothing obvious missing. Orochimaru declared that little mystery settled in favor of the base never having been entered. It was almost normal, like yesterday had never happened. They both knew better, of course. Kakashi saw it everywhere in the way his companion did not casually touch him in the myriad little ways that were Orochimaru's habit, and a significant contributor to his creepy reputation. He saw it in the ways Orochimaru took little detours in his speech when they started to get onto the same page, how their ideas flowed together unevenly. He saw it in the lack of Orochimaru's eyes piercing his. It was cold, the absence of heat. Kakashi had never felt anything as cold as the volcano was hot, but he had a sneaking feeling it would be much harder to handle.

He pondered apologizing, but decided against. Anyone would need time to process an object of envy personally shattering their highest hopes, as well as the more typical shock of a friend being in trouble, to say nothing of what that little incident revealed about some deeper incompatibility between them. Kakashi came very, very close to rationalizing why it would be in both their best interests to take a little look for himself, find out what the path with the best outcome was. But then he saw Orochimaru asking not to be pandered to, and remembered that choices were good things, even if they sometimes meant mistakes. Mistakes that cost them precious time together that could never be had again…

"What are you thinking?" Orochimaru asked. Kakashi realized he was staring off into the distance and had missed something.

"Oh… Nothing you need to concern yourself with. What did I miss?"

"Kakashi…"

A pointed glare got some kind of message across. Kakashi couldn't be sure it was the exact one he had in mind, but it got Orochimaru to leave well enough alone. Once more they faced apart, Orochimaru looking far off into deep forest and Kakashi looking into the sun.

"I was wondering what you had in mind out here," the snake whispered. "You must be thinking of doing something different. Debauchery doesn't become you."

Kakashi's heart beat lightly at that. "How good are you at feelings?"

Orochimaru looked sideways. "Are you joking?"

"Sadly, no. Talking about feelings is essential for any relationship where two people spend more time together than just the occasional meeting. You need practice anyway. Look where keeping mum has gotten you so far."

That was a little hurtful. "Don't talk to me about keeping quiet," Orochimaru snapped. "It's gotten you very far, and you know him as well as I do. Useless. That idiot isn't worth talking to anyway."

"I don't mean you should undo the past. I mean you have the power to make a better future," Kakashi protested. "I was only referring to you and me, and how it would be good to have a pack and hunt together, and to do that- "

Silence. _I can't share my fears with him. It's too much. _More silence. Kakashi turned away so he could not see Orochimaru's inquisitive stare anymore. "No, you're right. Let's...not."

Kakashi heard Orochimaru turn away. The silence continued. He didn't know where Orochimaru was looking, and kept his senses curled inward so he would not find out. _Leave him alone. _Kakashi did as his conscience dictated, though it went against his instincts. He curled up and wrapped his arms around his knees to resist the temptation to reach out for Orochimaru's hand. Orochimaru folded his arms, taking his hand out of reach anyway.

"You're in over your head," Orochimaru murmured.

"Yes," Kakashi agreed. He was ridiculously young by his own standards. Whatever had happened to make demons exist, it had come long before his time, possibly before time existed. Or… No, that didn't make any sense. Either way, the point was nobody else was on their first ever life. Kakashi could not hope for understanding from any other demon. He'd get chances for do-overs, but they wouldn't be a do-over of this. This was the life he was worst equipped to manage and the one he most wanted to.

"I think there is a wolf pack somewhere in that forest we hunted in," Orochimaru continued. "Have fun."

Kakashi's shoulders sagged. "It doesn't work like that."

"Then what the hell does it work like?" Orochimaru sounded distinctly frustrated.

"It's not the same with wolves as with people." Kakashi shook his head. "You don't feel the same about snakes as you do about humans, right? They're very different. You understand them differently. As do I."

"..." Orochimaru gave a grumbling sigh. "...Dammit, Puppy."

"Is something wrong?" Kakashi fought not to laugh as soon as he realized what he'd said.

Orochimaru was not similarly restrained. "You could say that, yes," he eventually answered. "Would you like to go hunting again?"

"Huh?" _What is he…_ "Yes."

The Snake Sannin stood up. "Thank you." He looked down at Kakashi, who was looking back. "There's no way you used your powers to manipulate any of this. You wouldn't have fucked up this badly if you had a choice."

Kakashi blinked. "Huh?"

Orochimaru laughed again. "Sharpen your teeth and let's go," he called back as he raced into the forest.

.

They hunted again. It was difficult. Kakashi had had the presence of mind to rise and run after his companion (his teeth didn't need sharpening), but not the presence of mind for much of anything else. His mind was not present as he looked around for Orochimaru, who had disappeared. His mind was not present when he forgot to look up. It was not present when he continued to walk on two legs, tripped over a root, blinked and realized he'd long since crossed a scent trail that he only just noticed, and started a staring contest with a rabbit. The rabbit lived to hop another day. Kakashi shook his head and banged his forehead against the nearest tree.

_Thwack! _That was a hard one. He was dazed for a few seconds. _That should have helped. _He hoped Orochimaru wasn't watching any of this. _Orochimaru? Wait, we're supposed to be hunting! _

Kakashi settled down to the ground again and inhaled deeply, letting the scents of the forest wash through his mouth and nose. If he'd been prepared to be on duty or it had been less sudden, he would've been able to stick the part of him that was still wondering what was going on in its box long before. He did that now. _Priorities. I'll ask Orochimaru what he's doing later. _

The hunt proceeded smoothly from there. Once Kakashi returned the worrying part of him to its box for the third time, he gave up on thinking and started just chasing anything that crossed his path. This included squirrels, rabbits, birds, and once, a smoked fish. Kakashi looked around for the juvenile prankster that was messing with him. He smelled cool, smooth scales and thought something under the sound of the wind could have been distant laughter.

The wild chasing continued. Kakashi created a small dragon to carry his kills around for him. Finally, despite his best efforts, his mind could no longer stay silent and he began to think again. He sat, panting, then returned to the hideout.

Orochimaru was already there, laying on the cliff above the hideout in the bright sun with a hand over his belly. He was covered with prey scents. Kakashi took the dragon over and sat next to him, shading the snake's eyes from the sun. They opened. Orochimaru looked up at him with a smirk on his lips.

Kakashi smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I found a great many other things to chase. I wasn't- "

"That was the point," Orochimaru explained. He looked up at the sky. "This is better."

Kakashi stared. His tail began to wag. "Yeah." He brought the dragon down to perch in his lap and started to investigate his catch. Orochimaru snickered at the smell of smoked fish. Kakashi giggled. "I can't believe someone had the nerve to bring this across my path. Can you imagine what sort of child would do that?"

"Children have fewer complications." Orochimaru's gaze grew distant. "Even if their lives don't, there's only so much that can make it through into the mind. The worst it gets is an overwhelming sense of bad. Pathetic."

Kakashi bit into the smoked fish and chewed happily. "Mhm. The different flavors of bad don't go well together." He swallowed. "It might be nice not to have more than one."

"Move," Orochimaru ordered. He closed his eyes again. "You're blocking heat rays that are rightfully mine."

Kakashi moved to his other side. "Are we better?"

"I'm taking a rest from thinking."

Kakashi could respect that. He finished his meal in silence. His meal only amounted to a third of the prey he'd caught; the rest had to be wrapped in darkness for preservation. He briefly envied serpents' expandable stomachs. He flopped over on his belly and turned his head away from the sun. It felt good. The silence in his mind felt even better. His ear started to twitch randomly.

He drifted back up for just long enough to realize Orochimaru had snuck a hand under him, then dove into the world of sleep.

.

Kakashi woke up when the sun had been gone for long enough that his back cooled down. He felt Orochimaru's hand on his belly and turned his head. The snake was still lying where he had been, savoring whatever remaining warmth there was. Kakashi smiled and admonished himself for lying so far away. He rose just a little and scooted over to complete the embrace. Orochimaru wrapped his arm around Kakashi more firmly and petted his hair.

"Should I take my own advice?" he asked Orochimaru's shoulder.

"What advice?" Orochimaru's shoulder was very comfortable.

"To share feelings and be completely honest with each other," Kakashi whispered. "It seemed like a better idea when we first left."

There was silence for several seconds. "Keep whatever can't be solved that doesn't affect me to yourself. Does that answer your question?"

Kakashi reached up to wrap his free hand over Orochimaru's far shoulder. "It does." He sighed. "It does affect you, so I should share what's been bothering me. That is that I don't think I can tell you my problems anymore. It feels bad not to be able to."

Orochimaru ruffled his hair. "And you couldn't come up with what I said by yourself? I thought you were a world renowned genius."

"Normal people can share unsolvable problems with each other all the time," Kakashi pointed out. "It's called commiseration, sharing feelings just to be able to get them out. I'm the one person in the world who happens to have problems that are too big for either of us."

"Not even other demons?"

"They either don't qualify as people anymore or have found some way to manage. I think more the first than the second."

Orochimaru hmm'd. "What kind of thing can take a demon's memories?"

Kakashi shivered. "That's not the problem. The problem is what else it took." His heart started to beat a little fast. "What kind of force can remove something branded into a soul like that?"

Orochimaru shivered just enough for Kakashi to feel. "You don't have good things to say about the state of the world, do you? Anything at all positive?"

"As long as the world exists, it has purpose," Kakashi told him. "Its purpose is to exist."

"That sounds wonderful."

Kakashi snorted. "It's the best I can do."

Orochimaru reached over with his free hand to pat Kakashi on the shoulder. "Let's go hunting tomorrow."

Kakashi nodded. "I don't think I'm ready, by the way."

"Hm?"

"What you said earlier about the wolf pack. I don't...the only possible reason I have for such a thing would be to have pups. I very much want to have at least one I can cherish some time, but I don't think I'm ready for fatherhood yet."

Orochimaru pointed out he was the same age his own father had been, perhaps a few years older. Kakashi waved that away. "Not until I'm sure our pack will be stable and safe." He set that as a firm line in his mind. Until they were together and sure, Kakashi would not consider himself ready to raise and train a pup. After today's hunt, he knew more than ever that he wouldn't be in his best mental condition if anything was still wrong. His mind was all he had, so…

"Let's investigate the records," Orochimaru suddenly declared. "They may not have appeared to be missing anything, but what else would you expect of overly cautious shinobi?"

"Will you explain them to me?" Orochimaru's voice was always good to hear, always.

"If you want me to."

They went to investigate the records. Nothing was missing. Orochimaru read a selection aloud to Kakashi, explaining what they meant. Kakashi enjoyed the sound of his voice, confident on the snake's home ground. Orochimaru looked at him in little glances. He made a purring tease in a voice that would have sent shivers up anyone else's spine at one point. His soul turned anxiously still. Kakashi hoped it was a good sign that the snake's unease no longer showed in his behavior. He wagged his tail as if it was and resisted the temptation to check the future to see if anything was going to come along to ruin this moment. He wagged his tail as if its white fur could capture each smell and sound of this moment and hold them forever.

Kakashi brought the dragon back in for dinner and ate less than he really needed. What he felt now was not solvable and did not affect Orochimaru in any way. He would not tell Orochimaru he was scared.


	6. Find The Lost

**A/N: There may be some inaccuracies ahead. My schedule's too busy to find those episodes and rewatch them, so I'm going off memory of what Karin's base was like.**

.

Several hunts passed. Kakashi wagged his tail often and started an evening class where, every day after dinner, he would point out how his tail was wagging and explain what it meant. Orochimaru was making good progress, and could now tell embarrassed from lonely at a glance. This of course meant that he had less opportunity to practice, as Kakashi's tail wagged _Happy _more consistently. Kakashi considered it a stroke of genius to make a tail for himself, and hands-down the greatest benefit of his new life outside the village.

Orochimaru started a morning class in response, where he demonstrated different patterns of scents and body language. Kakashi also made steady progress, which produced some turbulence in Orochimaru's soul. Kakashi never asked, but he hoped it was a good kind of turbulence from feeling something good that he'd never felt before.

The middle portions of their days would be spent alternately in the lab, with Orochimaru asking Kakashi to demonstrate various things for him to examine, or in the trees talking about life, or in the forest attuning themselves to each other. And flying. Orochimaru loved flying, and Kakashi was more than happy to oblige. They flew at all hours, in all conditions. Kakashi found opportunities to sneak in trust exercises here and there, as when he laid out a thin layer of darkness and they ate dinner sitting in the sky. It was wonderful.

One time, Orochimaru asked him to demonstrate how his darkness would interact with the reality of something more durable than a living thing. He'd already fetched a block of stone. "It doesn't have a soul, so there should be no issue. I'll prepare the instruments." Kakashi wagged extremely vague _Unease_ because it was true, stones didn't have souls, but nonetheless he felt that there was something natural in the stone that he would be destroying. If the neutral world was an offshoot of the divine, then everything must have a lingering divine nature in it. He explained this to Orochimaru after he agreed to the experiment. As he often had before, Kakashi could easily reconcile with his conscience for this one time.

Kakashi stayed up every few nights thinking about the ghost. In a way, he felt some kinship with it. Ghosts, like his own kind, fell outside the realm of things that were normal. There were some people who, having lived sheltered lives, did not believe either existed. Demons and ghosts both belonged to the category of things that many people would need a reason to believe in, rather than a reason to disbelieve. They didn't make natural sense to rational, orderly minds. For this reason, Kakashi was much more curious about the ghost than he would have been if he was normal. After the second such night, he started regularly sweeping his senses out, searching for any sign of it. He found nothing.

"Something isn't right here," he admitted one night to Orochimaru. The ramen he'd packed was running low. The snake took extra time to savor his current mouthful before looking at Kakashi inquisitively.

"I've been wondering about that ghost," he explained, "and I've been feeling very curious about it. I've been sending my senses out to search for it for most of the past week, and I haven't found anything."

Orochimaru set down his cup with a grim look. "Anything?"

"No." Kakashi took another bite and swallowed. "Nothing. Not so much as a whiff of ghost."

"This hideout should have a village's worth of ghosts in it," Orochimaru murmured. "That isn't right."

"I can't find any reason," Kakashi continued. "This _is_ a place of bad memories, but then, why would one still be here? Can you think of any wronged person that would want to return?"

Orochimaru snorted. "I've put everyone, subordinate and test subject alike, through hell. I think Kabuto was the only one that actually liked me, and that was because I cultivated a dependent personality in him. In short, no."

"Maybe it wandered in from outside?" Kakashi considered this idea. "It could be the spirit of someone who had a twisted personality, who would be intrigued by this place."

"You would sense other visitors if that was the case." Indeed, Kakashi had been looking for some distance beyond the base every time and had not sensed any ghosts there, either. He was out of ideas.

"The only thing I can think of is the library," he sighed. "That's where it was, and the library contains a great number of portals to other worlds. But I've looked in all the fiction books there, and haven't felt any traces of it."

"So that's why you wanted me to collect all the fiction books!" Orochimaru chuckled. "You could have just told me."

"My apologies." Kakashi scratched his head and smiled. "I was highly motivated at that time."

Orochimaru nodded. He would understand that feeling well enough. They finished dinner in silence. Orochimaru shrugged as they stood up and cleared everything away. "I'll keep an eye on the library," he offered.

"Thanks." Kakashi had low expectations of results.

Two days later, Orochimaru got bored. The peacefulness of a non-shinobi life was starting to grate on him. He all but ordered Kakashi to move with him to another base. It was just _unnatural_ to be spending more than two weeks in the same place. Kakashi regarded the base as like a small village, but he agreed anyway. Their experiences led to vastly different preferences. They would have to approach equilibrium together, or not at all.

They took off at night. Kakashi elected Orochimaru to be the navigator. Orochimaru turned out to be surprisingly good at finding his way by starlight.

"It's not hard to work out," he explained. "I've learned of the basics from missions to seafaring towns, and I spend a lot of time looking at the stars wherever I am for personal reasons."

Kakashi still thought it was a thing to be amazed by. "Whatever you say," he said with a smile.

They were taking a scenic flight, nothing like the fast-paced adrenaline rush of that first flight to the hidden base. The air blew Orochimaru's hair all over them both. "Hm," Kakashi began. "I hadn't considered that."

"What is it, Puppy?"

Kakashi shrugged. "It's not very important; I'm just surprised I never made the connection before. You smell like snake, and I'm always with you. I must be saturated with your scent by now. That won't help if I do seek out a pack." He shrugged again just to emphasize how much he really didn't care.

"Excellent point. I haven't stopped to think of how your scent might impact my relations with others either." Orochimaru's soul felt still and he was quiet. Kakashi knew this combination to mean _I'm comfortable in my mind now_ and that he should leave noise behind. He swept his wings through the sky silently. He didn't deliberately give them noise canceling properties. Sound just seemed like another physical property of the world that didn't survive him.

Several minutes later, Orochimaru's soul returned to normal. "What kind of relations with others do you usually have?" Kakashi asked.

"..." A significant pause. "First, explain to me why you ask that now."

Kakashi was suddenly very conscious of his wingbeats. "Ah...sorry," he began. "I can feel the general activity level of your soul. When it feels very quiet, I know not to disturb you. I can't read your heart, unless I looked more closely. Which I haven't."

Orochimaru readjusted his grip. "I suppose...it's not much different from you having a tail to wag." Kakashi relaxed.

But not entirely. "I still have to ask. What is it normally like for you?"

Orochimaru shrugged. "Every so often, I am approached by a female who has apparently decided that I smell like a good mate." Kakashi could hear his grin. "Opportunities are opportunities."

Kakashi flushed. He'd never thought about what Orochimaru did to satisfy that kind of desire. Or need. He always had to remember that other people considered that particular urge to be a need. Why it would be considered in the same category as eating or drinking, he didn't know, but Kakashi tried to keep that in mind all the same.

Even as he mentally dodged the main content of those sentences, Kakashi stumbled upon something intriguing. "Females?"

Orochimaru echoed Kakashi's own words. "It's different between snakes and people. You know that."

"Yeah…" The natural follow-up was too good to resist. Should he resist? Kakashi decided he wouldn't. "Different how?"

"You first." Orochimaru probably meant that to be a challenge. He failed.

Kakashi answered easily, "I have no sexual interest in a wolf or a human of either gender, and as far as I know have romantic interest only in human males. Your turn."

Orochimaru laughed under his breath. "You're strange, Puppy."

"Answer the question." Kakashi sounded a lot harsher than he meant to be. Surely he wouldn't object that much if Orochimaru declined, right? Even if he was disappointed, he would be respectful. Other people also considered this general topic to be very Important and Personal. He tried to remember that.

"No interest in human females, both kinds for human males, both kinds for snake females, romantic interest only for snake males," Orochimaru recited. "The last is an intuition. I feel like I potentially could bond with a male snake, but I can't imagine mating with one."

"Is the difference scent based, or physical, or…?" Kakashi wondered.

"Male snakes do have different scents. As for human women, they're too squishy. Ugh."

Kakashi understood the latter. "Mm. Not good for hugging."

"Or anything else, but yes." Orochimaru buried his nose in Kakashi's hair. "Human scents don't make any difference to me. It's because my nose isn't tuned to them." Kakashi's hair and the wind muffled his words.

The natural follow up was even more too good to resist. Should he resist it? They were already in pretty deep. Kakashi tried to resist. He failed. "Would that change if you were female?"

"No." Disappointing. But it lessened Kakashi's temptation, so it was good enough for now.

They flew on.

.

"Since when do you have a beachside base?"

"Hehe. Surprise."

They stood on the small patch of sand around a very small island, with waves lapping at the back of their feet and some kind of stone complex clearly visible from ground level. Kakashi clearly picked out a door. "Why the hell would you have a beachside base?" This island was not beyond walking distance.

"The purpose of it was isolation. Distance. It's far enough from the nearest coastline not to be visible, and that's all I needed." Orochimaru was weird.

"You're weird."

"Yes." Orochimaru looked up at the barely concealed entrance. "The last time this place was disturbed was when Sasuke came here to free Jugo, a member of that team he put together." Kakashi remembered Team Taka quite well. Jugo was the one that looked like a more rugged version of Pain, he recalled. "There should still be interesting scents left for you to find."

Kakashi wisely decided not to ask how interesting, and followed in silence.

His mouth filled with saliva upon entering, and Kakashi had no idea why. The usual causes for excessive salivation were either nausea or appetite, and this combination of scents caused none of those. He felt his soul stirring. Huh. On second thought, appetite couldn't be ruled out after all. That word covered a great many things beyond food.

Orochimaru grinned back at him. "Ah, I was right. I love the exotic scents here. It's like visiting a zoo." He opened his mouth and inhaled deeply. "Still strong undertones of fear, I see."

It occurred to Kakashi that Orochimaru would make one damn good wine taster. He shook his head to clear out that thought. "What else is here, besides prisoner cells?"

"Nothing substantial." Orochimaru was still savoring the taste of the air. "Where there are prisoners, there's a guard office, but that's about it. A small library, of course. Files."

Kakashi sighed. "Beds?"

"Do you feel any prisoners?" Kakashi did not. "Of course. I expected Sasuke would release them. He was still soft hearted while under my wing. I would sacrifice a base or two to learn what changed that." His eyes were on Kakashi.

Kakashi stared back. He didn't need that kind of temptation. His heart beat with fear still. What would happen if he succumbed to his powers, if he not only unleashed them but used them, all of them? What would happen if he looked beyond time and space, and then tried to return? The history of others of his kind was not one of the things Kakashi had inexplicable knowledge of. Yet, he knew it. He knew _exactly _what would happen if he went too far, knew almost exactly what had already happened. But it didn't affect Orochimaru and wasn't anything they could solve, so he kept his mouth shut.

Orochimaru sighed faintly. "At any rate, the guard post has a couch, which might be large enough for two people. It has a bed. But the main appeal of this place now is the taste of it, and there is nothing to stop you from taking a bed in any cell you choose. They're not that bad."

Kakashi nodded. There might be one part that affected Orochimaru. "Please don't ask or imply that I should look at something in the past or future for you. Not for idle curiosity's sake."

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow. "What would be wrong with that, Puppy?"

Kakashi looked at him. It was a blank look, like stone or a brick wall. His position was simple: looking around in time would not happen. That was all.

Orochimaru took a step away. "I'll have fun seeing what Karin's done with the place." He disappeared down a hallway. Kakashi followed as silently as a shadow.

Orochimaru took the only bed, and Kakashi one of the cells. He wrapped himself in the scent of something monstrous and unfamiliar, ignoring the chains in the corner. Something about the smell made his pulse race and kept his attention on it, no matter how hard Kakashi tried to sleep. It was from a male. Young. Unstable. The urge to lunge and devour it took over Kakashi's blood and set his muscles twitching. Kakashi sat up and reached out, extending darkness from his hand. It was too much!

He touched nothing. Whatever it had been disappeared. Kakashi was stunned to suddenly perceive emptiness, and even more stunned that he had apparently been perceiving something in the air with other senses this whole time. He drew his darkness back. It had disappeared when he touched it with darkness. Then...Kakashi's eyes widened.

He must be responding to chakra! How could that be? He'd never had a particular response to any kind of chakra. Kakashi cast about in his memory. Had he? He thought of how he felt now. Chills pricked up and down his spine. Hadn't he gotten a chill in his spine once before? When…?

_Pain._ It clicked. After he'd followed his body's plight to where it should lead, made his way as close to the afterlife as he could and hoped whatever was in charge of afterlife admittance didn't notice him, he'd come back. And his back had raced up and down with chills.

_No; not Pain._ He'd met the power of the Rinnegan again in the battle with Obito. It did nothing special. It wasn't that chakra that Kakashi was reminded of now. It was _Naruto. _Sage chakra. Natural chakra, brought in and passed through someone's soul and released again into the air.

Chakra that had been through two different kinds of living beings must be changed somehow, he reasoned. Maybe they carried some imprint of the soul that produced them and having two such imprints was driving him wild. Souls could be very attractive in some indefinable way. Kakashi shivered.

He got no sleep that night. The taste was too much. He wanted to drown in it.

.

Orochimaru yawned the next morning, and asked about his sleep.

"I didn't get any." Kakashi went on to explain why. Orochimaru's eyes bored into his own.

The Snake Sannin drew closer as Kakashi finished. He reached out and cupped Kakashi's chin in his hand, holding the wolf ninja's head still to take a closer look into his eyes. Orochimaru's own golden eyes were glittering in a vaguely predatory way. "Do you sense it now?" he asked in a whisper.

Kakashi did. Orochimaru's eyes widened just a fraction. Kakashi knew what he must be seeing. His eyes felt like they were glittering in a predatory way as well, and Kakashi couldn't stop them. _Why do I want souls? Why does the trace of them almost send me into a frenzy? _His teeth itched to bite something. The instability, the wildness, it all fed a ravenous appetite Kakashi had never realized he had. _I like...the chaos. _He remembered now. Once before, a very long time ago, Kakashi had awaken from nothingness and apathy to the tantalizing lure of a soul in distress. If not for that first reason to move, he might still be in that spot, inactive and quiet. Kakashi's heart began to beat better; its speed no longer felt bad like fear. Having an answer for why he felt like this was a very good thing.

Orochimaru drew back, but kept his hand on Kakashi's chin. "Sage chakra...I never dreamed of anything like this. I know a place where you could find more."

Kakashi was tempted, but shook his head no. "I'm sorry. I just remembered. When I first gained consciousness, or regained it, I had no motivation. I had no memories to give me a reason to move. I got a reason when a soul walked by in distress. I like the instability." He blushed to admit that. Other demons fell to sadism. Was he like other demons? He hoped not.

"I see…" Orochimaru's tongue traced his lips. "I wonder what that means?"

Kakashi chuckled nervously. "We should get out of here. I don't like to feel like this." The little orange book still lay buried in the bottom of his pack. Kakashi felt like burning it. Fantasy was fine, but to be hijacked by feelings like that was too much. He shivered.

Orochimaru giggled. "Ah, you'll get used to it." He told Kakashi they could leave later, if he still wanted to, but for now there was still some business to attend to. Then Kakashi was alone, watching Orochimaru's back as the snake looked for whatever business he had. The hallway was blunt gray and silent. It still tasted too much. Kakashi shivered again.

_What the hell? _He shook his head. The odds were lower in Konoha, but Kakashi was still fairly sure he had friends there who would have passed over his discomfort the same way. He really shouldn't be surprised that Orochimaru didn't understand. He'd talk about it later. Here, now, Kakashi could take care of himself. He could escape into the open air and drift high above the base, leave all the strangely delicious but also too-strong scents of this place behind. That was what he did.

He landed directly in front of the snake some hours later, on the beach. "Orochimaru." His tone of voice meant business.

Orochimaru tilted his head at Kakashi and searched his face. The snake seemed very confused.

Kakashi sighed and tried to find the right balance of accusatory and reassuring. "You know that disregarding someone's feelings is not the right thing to do." He tried to sound patient.

Orochimaru chuckled. "Of course, if they're important."

Kakashi's right eye twitched. "That _was_ important. I am not meant to feel like that, and I couldn't stop it." He disregarded his rising sense of anger. That would not be helpful right now.

Orochimaru took a closer look into Kakashi's eyes. "You really _did_ feel bad, Puppy?"

"Yes." _Riiiigghht. The classic 'if I don't experience it, it's not real' bias. _Kakashi remembered how he'd used his powers to copy Orochimaru's feeling. Why wasn't that an ability everyone had? World peace would happen instantly if everyone could do that! _No use getting hysterical. Facts are facts. _The facts sucked! Kakashi tried not to show his frustration. If he could somehow extend that power to Orochimaru, allow the snake to use it, it would all be easier. But he couldn't. So Kakashi reminded himself he would have to make do with what he had, and teach Orochimaru about life the hard way.

"Oh." Orochimaru blinked. "My apologies. Sadly, it doesn't change very much of what I said. I still want to look through the records, investigate what's changed. We can leave tonight." He managed to shrug a little apologetically. Kakashi felt like sighing.

"Lesson number two: sometimes that's enough," Kakashi said instead. "Recognizing that another person's feelings are in fact real is the first and most essential step. Sometimes it's the only step you need to take." He'd expect the snake to be genuinely apologetic later. Kakashi offered his hand. "Would you like help looking through the files?"

Orochimaru's eyes grew distant as he looked at Kakashi's hand. He pulled himself back to the present shortly. "I would." They went back inside.

.

Orochimaru sighed. "Another one, huh?"

"What is it?" Kakashi looked up from his collection of files.

Orochimaru put his back in the cabinet. For obvious reasons, he had wanted to look through the most recent files, from after his death. He wrinkled his nose at whatever had been in them. "This place continued to run more or less as it did before," he summarized. "I've always expected more initiative of my people. I do not hate Sasuke for attempting to kill me, and I will admit to some pride in Kabuto for his achievements. Karin...is not so deserving." He shook his head sadly.

Kakashi blinked. "You're _upset_ that she didn't immediately run wild when you died?"

"If I wanted to surround myself with imbeciles who couldn't be trusted to keep things running after surprises and hiccups, I could have murdered a minor village and raised them all with the Edo Tensei." Orochimaru sounded very disappointed. "There is nothing more detestable than incompetence."

Kakashi handed his files back. "Well, at least she was competent enough for running the base before your death. No suspicious activity here."

Orochimaru stuffed them back into the cabinet next to the files he'd looked at. "There's supposed to be suspicious activity. My subordinates are all the kind of people who would willingly take orders from me, for god's sake. Untrustworthiness is a job requirement."

Kakashi looked off to his left. "Well, I'll do what you ask me to."

Orochimaru shook his head. "You're not a subordinate, which means you don't take direct orders. I can trick anyone into cooperating with a mere request. An order is different."

Kakashi shrugged. "Mah, I'm still the kind of person who spends time with you. That would be suspicious enough in most places."

Orochimaru shrugged. "That's also different."

"She's found some kind of position with Konoha now," Kakashi said with exasperation. "Perhaps you're right, she wasn't cut out for working with someone like you after all."

"This kind of performance proves it," Orochimaru sneered. "My hatchlings made vastly more competent and active assistants."

Kakashi was startled into silence for several seconds. He'd never thought about this topic before, just like he'd never thought about the other one. _He has children? _Kakashi was somehow confused _and_ in the mood for facepalming because it was so obvious, how had he not ever realized? Half of his brain devoted its energy to processing the news, and the other half devoted its energy to analyzing all the ways this wasn't news. It must have shown on his face.

Orochimaru continued as if he'd said nothing out of the ordinary, nothing remarkable at all. "I was always finding them in some corner of the base or another, doing some random thing I hadn't asked for. A couple of them even took it upon themselves to scold my human subordinates. Hah, I remember one of my daughters scolded Kabuto once." He sat back on the guard post's couch and chuckled at the memory. "She got extra treats, that was for damn sure. Was that the same...no, she was a different one. I wonder what happened…" Orochimaru's eyes were very distant now, lost in memory. He gave no sign of having noticed Kakashi.

Kakashi looked around the room for many awkward seconds while he waited for Orochimaru to come back. The snake sighed. Kakashi took that as his cue. "What were you thinking of?"

Orochimaru turned away. "Nothing relevant to you. Let's prepare to go, Puppy."

Kakashi's intuition told him that he'd just heard an untruth. He kept his mouth shut anyway and helped Orochimaru to put all the files back, repack everything, and undo all the signs of their presence. He scanned the base as well, in accordance with his new habit. "Orochi-"

He cut off, leaving a syllable jutting out into the air like a broken bridge. Orochimaru was instantly alert. "What is it?" His eyes and ears scanned the room, even as he waited for Kakashi's superior senses to tell him what was wrong. Kakashi did not answer.

Orochimaru was at Kakashi's side in a blink, squeezing his shoulder. Kakashi raised his hand and squeezed back. His head turned to look at the nearest wall, with an intensity suggesting Kakashi was trying to use his now-gone Sharingan to look through the wall.

"The library?" It was Orochimaru's base. He had to know what lay in that direction.

"Yeah." Kakashi released his hand. "And not just that. The ghost. The _same_ ghost."

Orochimaru met Kakashi's eyes. "You've sensed it enough to recognize it?"

"Yes." Kakashi looked back at the wall, beyond which lay the library. "It has a distinct flavor. Hold on."

He squinted, peering intensely in that direction. His hand raised in a Stop gesture, though Orochimaru knew not to move. Another half a minute passed before Kakashi lowered his hand and wrinkled his brow in confusion. "Not good. Very not good."

He turned back to Orochimaru, who was waiting patiently. "It's not very active this time, probably because I'm not trying to pursue it. I've gotten a much closer look."

"It doesn't sound like I'll like what you saw any more than you do," Orochimaru followed. His fist clenched. "Tell me."

"Firstly, it's not dead."

.

**A/N: This story is coming along very well for something that was never a story in the first place. **

**This story is one I naturally came up with, without the benefit of dreaming about it. That means that ironically, it is more dreamlike than the stories that started as dreams. Does it seem incoherent at parts? Or perhaps a little info-bomby in places? It should, because this was always a thought experiment imagined as a series of distantly related scenes. It's not correct to say I naturally make mental fanfics when I like a show. It is correct to say I naturally invent "What if?" scenarios. This entire story is a combination of several What If? scenarios, illustrated through my favorite characters. So if their personalities seem a little off, and facts are stated too easily and quickly, that's why. The purpose of writing this is to see how well I can turn one into another, because I can't just provide facts without context. **

**If anyone bothers to review, keep that in mind. The ghost plot is the only real plot in this entire thing. Writing quality should pick up in accordance with that. **


	7. Spoil The Plan

"What?" Orochimaru demanded.

Kakashi shrugged. "It's a matter of semantics. A ghost is a soul untethered to its body. This so-called ghost is not a complete soul, and has the very faint remains of a tether. For practical purposes, you can still call it a ghost. But something very different from ordinary death has happened to it."

Orochimaru looked back in the direction of the library. "What kind of tether? To where? And how much of a soul does it have?"

Kakashi shivered. "Not much of one." He looked sad as he shook his head. "I can't tell what it looked like before, or what its name was, or even what gender it was. There's very little left. It's lost things over time, forgotten itself.

"The same is true of the rest. Just enough of a tether that it probably feels as if it should be somewhere, but not nearly enough for me or it to follow. I can only be partially sure it's the kind of tether a soul has to its body. It might be something else, like a connection to the cause of this or something. Either way, a ghost is someone who chooses to remain here. This one has no choice because it's still tethered," Kakashi stressed.

"Poltergeists," Orochimaru argued.

"Disembodied souls that have made very poor choices. But still, a choice."

"So talking to it and getting it to 'move on' won't work?" Orochimaru asked.

"Yeah. Maybe there's some kind of ritual holding it. Only something arcane could have separated a soul from its body in the first place without just killing the body, so there's a ritual involved in this somewhere."

Orochimaru crossed his arms. "Very reassuring. I don't have experience with arcane rituals that resulted in anything good, as you don't."

Kakashi stared at him dumbfounded. "Of course not. The existence of a soul in this condition is a bad thing that proves we're talking about a bad ritual. Of course we aren't… How did you even raise the question of if good arcane rituals exist?"

"I mean beyond the immediate victim," Orochimaru replied. "Mysterious rituals often take an immediate victim for some broader purpose. Have you ever heard of a ritual whose broader purpose was good?"

"Of course. Divine ones," Kakashi replied. "This world is a divine offshoot. Divine rituals are a normal part of the operation of the world."

"..." The expression on Orochimaru's face, if photographed, would have sold widely.

"No, there is no chance this is any kind of divine ritual," Kakashi reassured. "A divine ritual can result in pain and/or death, because those are natural, but the forces of nature can't bring about anything unnatural. This is unnatural. It can't be divine."

"I thought you had mysterious knowledge of your own kind and Hell," Orochimaru muttered.

"As well as anything neutral," Kakashi sighed. How many ways was he going to have to explain? "The world is divine-neutral. I may not have come into existence with mysterious knowledge of it, but my senses can perceive what it is and I have the brains to figure out how it works. There's no way I could describe any part of the afterlife, or tell you what happens there, but this world is visible to me."

Orochimaru tilted his head.

"I can tell where the divine _is_ and use basic logic from there." If that didn't make sense, nothing would. It was as short and snappy as Kakashi could make it. He crossed his arms and checked the pack. They were all ready to go, except for the new wrinkle he'd discovered.

"Ah," Orochimaru exclaimed. "So pain and death have a natural flavor to them, and this situation doesn't. I see." He picked up the pack and slung it over his back. "So what do we do now?"

"Figure out why it's here," Kakashi guessed. Why would a ghost have followed them from base to distant base? How could it have traveled that distance? How did it have enough presence of mind to do anything other than wander aimlessly? Did its tether connect to one of them, or did it have just enough presence of mind to ask for their help? How could it ask someone for help when it couldn't even remember its name? To boil all this down to its essence: What was so special about Kakashi and Orochimaru?

Orochimaru groaned. "Damn it."

Kakashi was all ears.

"I've studied all kinds of arcane rituals. It's probably trying to follow the ritual that did this to it, which has good chances of being in my possession. Damn it." Orochimaru unslung the pack and tossed it to the ground somewhere. "I have no memory of seeing anything that could have done this, of course, but it might be in a book that contained information on many different rituals. We're not leaving tonight, are we?"

Kakashi shook his head no. Orochimaru looked very displeased. "We should go through this place's library, then make a plan. If it helps, I'll come with you and see if I can interact with it," Kakashi offered. The strange presence was still nearby, unchanged. _See if I can find out what it's doing,_ Kakashi elaborated to himself.

"That's what you would have done anyway. I'm not approaching a semi-alive spirit I don't know anything about by myself." Orochimaru turned and waved for Kakashi to follow him. Kakashi's tail waved _Irritation._ He added gratitude to the list of things Orochimaru needed to learn about as he followed the snake out the door.

Orochimaru stopped and waved Kakashi ahead. "After you."

Kakashi allowed irritation to show on his face and in his voice. "At least the _illusion_ of reciprocity would be appreciated, even if I can see through it." He shook his head and reached for the door anyway.

The presence inside vanished. Kakashi's hand paused in the air. _Is it afraid of me? _He opened the door and looked inside. There was nothing.

Kakashi turned back, still occupying the doorway. "Besides, I seem to be scaring it," he added. "If you want to find out anything more about it, you're going to have to stop hiding behind a human shield." He turned decisively and went inside to stand in a corner.

Orochimaru entered and stood in the middle of the room with his arms crossed.. "Alright, alright," he muttered. It sounded genuine. "Easy, Puppy. Your soul is more durable than mine."

That was true. Kakashi realized he was acting foolish. Was this the right thing to be chiding Orochimaru over? He certainly shouldn't be sulking in a corner. He wagged _Embarrassment_ as he joined Orochimaru, sitting on the single small desk that the small room had space for. "Mah, I'd still appreciate some distinction between coming with you because I have to and volunteering for it."

"Well, you're here now," Orochimaru said with a shrug. "Let's get started."

He uncrossed his arms and reached out to the shelves. A single hand, poised for grabbing a selected target, hovered centimeters from the dust-bound backs of creepy-looking texts. It skittered sideways, gliding soundlessly over a variety of scripts. "Not this shelf," Orochimaru whispered. "I would normally reacquaint myself with the activities of my hideout before beginning anything. It helps me to locate this hideout in my memories. Ah, what did I read in those files?" He made small sounds to himself.

He turned to his left. "Right, that was it. All parts of a dynamic system must be kept in mind at once, or it all becomes incomprehensible." Tongue tracing his left fang as he hissed softly, Orochimaru approached the two shelves that formed the left corner. "It's good I haven't had more time with you, Puppy. Look what you're already doing to me."

Kakashi crossed his arms and felt decidedly surly. He tried to keep in mind what his companion probably meant by that, not what he heard in it. It was good that he'd already managed to take some of Orochimaru's attention off his former studies, wasn't it? And Orochimaru was technically right, the best kind of right. Now that the formerly dynamic system of hideouts had ground to a halt, perhaps Kakashi could learn more of it and free Orochimaru's memory. _That_ was an idea. He sat up straighter and looked around. If he looked closer, he could discern what a whole shelf contained with a glance.

"Here," and Orochimaru's ready hand plucked a thin book from its shelf and tossed it into Kakashi's lap. The books on that shelf were older than the rest and, Kakashi suspected, had been harder to find. He opened the book he had been given and searched through it, looking for a trace of a tether. Nothing.

Two more books came his way, also without traces of a tether. "That's all for this one," Orochimaru sighed as he sat down next to Kakashi on the small table. "This place was rather specialized. Only a few books on curses, I believe, had any relevance."

"Yeah, these are full of curses," Kakashi confirmed. "None of them feel like the ghost or have any tether, though, assuming that you were right and that something that old would have recognizable traces left."

"Sounds like a damn good thing you're here," Orochimaru remarked.

Kakashi nodded. He kept the books piled in his lap, just in case the second of those assumptions turned out to be incorrect and deeper analysis was warranted. He'd decide what kind of deeper analysis would be best as soon as they knew more about the situation. "Speaking of…"

Orochimaru turned his head slightly. "Any ideas?"

"No," Kakashi sighed peacefully, "just more questions." It was starting to be really fun to ask endless questions. Kakashi was sure he'd need answers at some point, but for now he could understand Orochimaru's fascination with the endless mysterious stars. "About you, me, and everything."

"Cut the crap," Orochimaru snapped. Kakashi snickered. It was way too easy to get under the snake's skin, no matter how scaly it might be.

"First of all, that's going to be a problem," he murmured. "If I scare the spirit, yet I'm the only one with the perception to glean answers, that hampers our investigation. There's an obvious question there: Why do I scare it? If I can change something to stop scaring it, that would be helpful."

Orochimaru turned more. "Your darkness destroyed souls," he remembered. "And now you wear it all over you. Even a touch could be deadly to it."

"It barely remembers anything about itself, and it's too diffuse to touch," Kakashi replied. "That first encounter, I walked into the library with it. I felt some subtle change in the atmosphere when it left, which was all. It couldn't have been collected enough to touch; I couldn't even have seen it, I think."

"Try not wearing your darkness anyway," Orochimaru replied. "You could borrow a spare uniform," he added hastily a couple seconds later.

Kakashi grinned behind his mask. "You'd prefer it if I didn't."

"True," Orochimaru slyly admitted. "The vest does something for your shoulders, but the uniforms are rather shapeless. If you have to be not wearing your regular clothes…"

"I have an idea." Kakashi offered his compromise. "I'll keep a watch out tonight, and see if I can approach without scaring it while you're sleeping."

"Slippery," Orochimaru marveled. It was neither entirely praise nor entirely curse.

"In the meantime, there's more." Kakashi had a number of other questions to ask. He hadn't bothered counting how many.

They left to catch dinner an hour later. In the meantime, Kakashi had great fun seeing what Orochimaru could make of his questions. The Snake Sannin spent ten minutes on "What kind of ritual is most likely to have done this?" alone, before declaring a tie between a curse gone right and a power-bestowing ritual gone wrong. Demon-summoning gone horribly, horribly right had a good run until Kakashi pointed out that the ghost would have to be _very_ old for them not to have heard of an incident involving a demon running amok. It settled for third place, just ahead of instant-travel ritual gone up and communication ritual gone left.

"I dislike the use of imprecise language," Kakashi detoured, after they finished discussing the likelihood of a demon-summoning ritual being responsible. "Pretty much anything, physical or spiritual or nonexistent, natural or unnatural, can be called a demon as long as it scares people. Wild beasts, sentient chakra constructions, sentient chakra constructions in the shape of wild beasts, you name it." He snorted. "There's surely at least one person that's called a misbehaving poltergeist a demon, for goodness' sake. A line has to be drawn somewhere."

He wagged _Happy _and _Amusement_ to show he wasn't being overly serious, so Orochimaru only laughed and agreed and asked what his next question was. It was "Depending on what kind of ritual did this, what condition do you think the body's in?" Unspoken agreement that any answer other than "Intact, of course" would be very sad hung in the air, so they moved on quickly. The next question was, "Do you think a spirit in such condition _can_ return to a body?" They postponed answering that until some imaginary future date.

"What I want to know about is my part in this," Orochimaru declared. "We've been followed, and we know it doesn't like you. That leaves me. Even if it somehow _does _have enough of a mind left to look for the ritual, which I don't believe for a second, that was just the only thing I could think of, I don't believe for a millisecond it has the mind to follow _people _in the hope they'll help."

He threw his head back and held himself up on his arms, as if he were looking at the stars instead of the ceiling. "That's what it comes down to, Puppy. _How _much of a mind does it have left, and _what_ parts? Does it barely remember events in its past? Emotions? Pieces of information? What does it know?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I'm sorry. I have no idea. Its soul is like a soup by now, a soup where most of it is completely dissolved and the rest is scattered all over the table. If it was still in order with the noodles on the bottom, the vegetables in the middle, and the fish cakes on top, I could tell what the pieces were from their location. With them all scattered, I'd have to hold a piece still to take a closer look, but they're running around everywhere and the whole thing is afraid of me. I can tell there are some pieces of pieces left, but I can't see what they are. I'm sorry."

Orochimaru sighed. "And I don't have quite the right eyes or ears. Damn."

The most frustrating part of that entire hour settled over them for a good four seconds, until Orochimaru realized something. "Puppy, did you just compare our ghost to soup or ramen?"

"Oh...Sorry, I've gotten more used to Naruto's way of understanding things than I thought, apparently." Kakashi scratched his head sheepishly, Orochimaru laughed and remarked that it was better this way, and the conversation resumed.

Some time later, Kakashi wove a trawling net out of darkness and caught two fish with one net, catching dinner as he flew with Orochimaru over the ocean. Orochimaru looked forward eagerly to the sweet, sweet taste of efficiency. Kakashi swung the net with its two struggling victims over his back and told Orochimaru that that was just too bad. Kakashi didn't have to wait; he would enjoy the sweet, sweet taste of extra flight time right now. He made a 90 degree turn straight up, spun, and executed a spinning loop de loop before Orochimaru could smack him.

Orochimaru had a moment of staircase wit over dinner, which he tried to gloss over by pretending he wasn't late at all. "Time makes all good things sweeter," he reminded Kakashi just before taking a bit of the cooked fish. Kakashi shook his head and did not take a bite of fish, a dead giveaway that he was struggling not to grin and losing.

They brushed the sand off themselves and returned inside after nightfall. Orochimaru had made a habit of looking up at the stars, and Kakashi had to agree that it did feel strange not to be doing that. But they had other things to do this night.

"Plan A: I'll stay up waiting for it to appear tonight," Kakashi started, "at which point I will absorb all my darkness inside my body and go to see it. The odds of this working are low, but you're very stubborn so I'll do it."

"We must go through the proper scientific method," Orochimaru insisted.

"Plan I: If that doesn't work, _you_ have to go meet it next time," Kakashi punctuated with a stare.

"Any good scientist must from time to time," Orochimaru shrugged.

"Plan U: After it murders you painfully, I'll dump your corpse into the ocean, water one of those mint plants you love so much with my tears, and follow you down," Kakashi rattled off. He did not make writing motions as he said this, like he had before for Plans A and I.

"Occupational hazard," Orochimaru shrugged again.

Kakashi resumed making writing motions with his hand, though they were sitting across from each other at a low table in the guard's room with nothing but bare wood on its surface. "Plan U: We're going to be taking these three books with us, since we can and it would be annoying to come all the way back out here if we need them. While I keep watch for it, you look through the books and mark off any rituals that seem like good candidates.

"Plan E: We go around to all your bases and search their libraries. All books of interest shall be stashed in your largest base.

"Plan O: If we find nothing after going to all this effort, I do a deep analysis of the books. Depending on the previous results of Plans A and I, either I or you will bring each book to the ghost and see if it gets excited. I'll do a deep analysis of each individual ritual described, if I must."

He fell silent. Orochimaru raised a brow. Kakashi sighed and slowly, reluctantly, made some more writing motions with his hand.

"Plan Ka: If we exhaust all our options…" He remembered Naruto. He smiled through his mask and shot Orochimaru with a flaming arrow of a stare. "We sit right back down, invite the ghost in, and think up some more options."

Orochimaru smirked. "The student teaching the teacher?"

Kakashi held up a hand. "Mah, mah, nothing like that. He does it to everybody."

Plans A through Ka were accepted. Kakashi rolled up an imaginary scroll, Orochimaru grabbed a pen and sat on the couch with the three books, and Kakashi lay back on the foot of the couch staring at the ceiling mostly, at Orochimaru sometimes, and always trying not to fall asleep.

Orochimaru caught his eye on one of the sometimes. "See anything you like?" Okay, the snake had to be acting like this deliberately. He _had _to be.

"Your eyes glitter," Kakashi replied. "Why do animal's eyes do that? Human eyes look soft and deep, like a pool of water, but animal's eyes seem to glow like they have gem dust in them."

A small smile rejuvenated Orochimaru's face, before it twisted into a smirk. "Some predators do have a reflective layer in their eyes for enhanced night vision." His yellow serpent's eyes pierced Kakashi's the whole time. They could probably see what the wolf ninja was thinking. He felt hypnotized. No _wonder_ Orochimaru had commanded his own village.

Kakashi managed to break the hypnosis enough to whisper, "Not true." He rested an arm on the back of the couch and turned fully onto his side. "They do it more when you're inspired. I think the stars left pieces of themselves in there."

Did Orochimaru blush? He turned his head a little, but Kakashi was sure that yes, he had. "Stop, Puppy. You know I don't appreciate flattery. I told you so, didn't I?" He had. But it was different. They'd been different back then. Orochimaru's eyes had been cold then, where now they held shining bioluminescence. It was still cold light, but it was firm instead of hard. Kakashi would have liked to rest against that firmness and wait for it to soften and warm.

His better knowledge of human nature told him to turn away. He closed his eyes and resumed his former position, not looking into anything. "They do, nonetheless." He opened his eyes when the sound of paper folding and pen scratching resumed. From then on, Kakashi looked at the ceiling only.

He was starting to approach the point where he would have to try not to fall asleep, when a familiar presence took shape on the edge of his awareness. Kakashi raised a hand. "It's coming back." All sound stopped as he held his hand there, waiting for it to condense further. It did, but very little. Kakashi compared it to his memories of that first encounter where he had seen nothing, and found substantial reason to doubt he would see anything now. But he had promised, and maybe physical proximity could help somehow.

He rose swiftly off the couch and went to the door. Before he went through it, Kakashi had a _great_ idea. He turned back to the couch and chuckled evilly. Instantly, his darkness turned to dark vapor. Orochimaru choked and started to utter an appreciative curse. Kakashi was gone before he said it.

_Worth it? _Kakashi was only really asking his own forgiveness, since he was the only one who could have a problem with it. It was a useless question because he'd already done it, so clearly he had already had permission._ Definitely worth it._

The air felt interesting in direct contact with his skin like this, especially as the portion of his soul beneath his clothes had not adjusted as much to the chakra-infused atmosphere, so _that_ feeling came back to him. Kakashi felt again the generic _Good I Want! _of a baby. Thank goodness, he'd partially adjusted. When the feeling was at this level, he thought he could enjoy it. With no one around but someone he could easily grow to trust with seeing him naked, Kakashi pondered the idea of doing this more often for sensation's sake.

He wondered if the ghost could hear him. Just in case it could, he projected messages of _harmless_ and _want to meet_ from his soul. There was no change. He took the handle of the library door in his hand. He pulled the door open. He stuck his head in. There was nothing to see, as Kakashi had expected. He edged his way in slowly, carefully.

The presence disappeared. Kakashi groaned and smacked the nearest shelf. He'd expected this and it was _still _disappointing. How could that be? The ghost just didn't want to be near him, and probably he would never find ou-

Kakashi heard it. From nowhere, a soul was saying something. He replayed the feeling of hearing it, not having understood the first time. Kakashi discovered that his lack of comprehension was not due to being surprised, nor to confusion over the signal's source. The source of the signal was diffuse, coming from almost every angle and nowhere in particular, but that wasn't why he had trouble understanding. No, the signal _itself_ was diffuse. Kakashi's heart leaped. That had to be the spirit he had hoped to meet! Here it was, somehow mustering the coherency to meet him.

Or not.

Condensation. More and more, the spirit condensed down to a form so definite it shouldn't have been within the spirit's abilities. Kakashi stood paralyzed with horror as it assumed not only visibility, but also an actual shape, and perhaps even touch. If not for the horror paralysis, he would have done a lot of things to see what it looked like. He did not see what it looked like because it was not condensing in the library. It was in the guard's room!

Something itched on Kakashi's foot. This itch broke his paralysis, and abruptly he found himself outside the library, in the hallway, with no memory of having moved or reformed his clothes. He was on the move, but why? Why was he moving? Kakashi tilted forward and almost fell from stopping too fast. Heart pounding in his throat, he stared at nothing, silently following what was happening. This was Plan I. What would Orochimaru be able to find out?

Kakashi found reassurance in the little signal, which some part of him had kept remembering. It was puzzling and vague, but if Kakashi didn't let himself think too much about it, he almost understood it. It felt like _Good_, or maybe _Pleasant._ It was a positive feeling of low intensity. Orochimaru...positive feeling...Kakashi didn't have time to fully sort out what it meant. He did know that positive feelings prompted cooperation. He pressed himself against the wall, wishing more than ever that he could see what was going on. Some unacknowledged part of him turned over in unease still. Kakashi denied it.

The spirit was as condensed as it was ever going to manage. It felt no feelings that Kakashi could pick up. _How is it condensed if it can't even…_ There was something about it, something that Kakashi could have understood, if only he could _see!_ Orochimaru was… Frightened? Kakashi denied his instincts further. Orochimaru's feeling deepened, spreading and sinking as blood spreads and sinks into the ground, becoming more than fear. Dread. And-

A little candle flame. Kakashi couldn't see it, but that was what it would look like if he could, he knew. It felt like a little flame. It was bright, and wavered, and was so small and delicate. It had a twin in Orochimaru. They glowed together, two soul-lights flickering in harmony. Kakashi's mouth went desert dry. His denial slipped. He moved his hand.

The flame went out, and with it the tenuous connection it had formed. Orochimaru lost consciousness. The ghost reached forward. Kakashi was off. His sandals skidded across the stone, and his chakra gripped for better traction. He flung himself through the doorway.

The room was empty. The spirit had begun to decondense at his first step; it was gone. Orochimaru was flat on his back where he had stood before the ghost. His head must have brushed against the edge of the couch cushions as he fell down. Kakashi went to him and cradled his head. Orochimaru's breathing was shallow. _It's not bleeding. He's okay. _Kakashi's breathing was shallow. He forced himself to calm down.

Orochimaru's eyes fluttered open shortly. They looked dazed, but otherwise unchanged. _Thank the gods._ Kakashi hauled the snake to his feet. Before he could say anything, Kakashi told him, "You were right. It's not that intelligent, and it doesn't have a plan. It didn't follow us from base to base for help.

"It followed _you._"

.

**A/N: Sorry about that. I wrote the first bit where Kakashi explains what he means as a continuation of the end of the last chapter. Why did the rest take so long to get out? Because I had two days stolen from my week (vacation days), and I thought I was going to have to rewrite the ending and put it off for a day. My apologies. **

**On my first write through, I listed the plans as A, B, C, etc. Then I remembered that hello, they live in the Narutoverse, the alphabet doesn't exist. Those letters and Ka are the romanized (written using the alphabet) versions of the first 6 hiragana symbols listed on the hiragana charts I looked up with Google Images. Hiragana is a basic japanese script, more comparable to the alphabet than kanji. Those aren't letters, is my point.  
**

**As for Orochimaru's "staircase wit": espirit d' escalier is a French term I heard of that refers to a witty comeback which you think of only after you're already on the stairs to leave the party. It's that annoying affliction that action stars don't suffer from.**

**BTW, I thought the looks on readers' faces would be funny if I mentioned that, of the options they came up with for "What kind of ritual did this?", none of them were correct. Have fun with that!**


	8. Memory 1

**Memory 1**

.

"Oi! Kakashi! We're having a group match, come on!" yelled one of them. Kakashi knew it was Guy, it had to be Guy, but who cared? He walked on without a word. Out of the corner of his eye, Guy's body language slowly, reluctantly, grew less enthusiastic as he realized Kakashi wasn't going to join in. The wolf ninja walked on. He was eight years old, and the anniversary of his father's death the year before was approaching. Who cared about sparring? Kakashi had a memorial to plan.

He walked past the flower shop. Inoichi sat outside, visibly reminding himself not to reach out and try to talk to Kakashi. Shikaku sighed. Even he, Kakashi thought, did not know the full story behind Kakashi's silence.

Yes, he had gotten quieter in his overall personality since his father had died. Shikaku had no doubt remembered the upcoming date and reasoned that Kakashi had things to plan, too. It brought a little smile to Kakashi's hidden face sometimes, when he thought about how much more than that they didn't know. Keeping secrets held its own strange pleasure. It was the only reason he ever smiled these days.

One of the things they didn't know was that Kakashi had yet to plan anything. Inoichi knew to hold himself back because Kakashi had descended into his own little bubble a full month ago. Yet, he still had not the faintest clue where to start planning a memorial. Kakashi had spent the past month trying to figure out who his father had been and what Hatake Sakumo would have liked. He had also spent the past month failing.

He saw his father as he had seen him that last time, as Sakumo lay curled on the floor. The image floated over Kakashi's eyes, replacing the outside world. His subconscious mind and ninja instincts could deal with navigating reality. Let his real mind float off somewhere else for a time.

Hatake Sakumo was more of a mystery to his own son than he was to anyone else. To anyone else, Sakumo's life and death probably seemed quite simple to explain. He was a strong hearted man, always fighting in one way or another for his friends, village, and, if he could get away with it, for complete strangers too. To have his love spurned by people who would rather die than be saved, would rather kill than live, was utterly confusing, a bizarre part of reality that was just a little too much for his heart to take. These sorts of people had hearts that didn't belong in the version of reality Sakumo saw. And yet, he devoted his life to them. Why? Anyone around the village who knew him could point to this mismatch as the reason why he had lost hope, lost all desire to live.

Kakashi had a different theory. He'd noticed the way his father wore no mask. He'd noticed the way his father could always be located whenever the Hokage or anyone else needed him. He'd noticed the lack of forest smell inside their home, except for when Sakumo took him out as part of his fatherly duties, passing on their heritage and all that. It was confusing. Kakashi's hands tightened in his pockets. Why? Once Kakashi had learned the first thing about his clan, the very first thing, he understood from then on that something was wrong with his father. If they were all half beast, why was his father only ever human? Why did he never take any time to disappear into the other half of his world? Kakashi had learned, too, that masks were common features among his clan. When he was 13, something his father called "fang teeth" would grow in. Kakashi did not know what they would look like because there were surgeries available for them. If someone of his clan wanted to get their fang teeth removed, they could contact certain other members of the clan who had medical training. Sakumo had always, as far as Kakashi could tell, gone maskless. He must have gotten the surgery practically as soon as he could. Why?

Another one of the things nobody knew was just how angry Kakashi was at his father. His theory of Hatake Sakumo's death was simple: He'd died because the human world turned its back on him and he had nowhere else to go. If he'd had anywhere else to go, if Kakashi's father hadn't turned his back on and abandoned his other world first, he would not have died when the human world rejected him. He'd tried too hard to be only half of himself, so when the slightest thing came along to disturb that he was ruined. It was his fault that he'd died! Kakashi's keen analytical mind saw it as similar to a political leader's base. Anyone could see that a full base was better than half of one, and infinitely more stable. For their clan, it was impossible to be completely human, so why try? Kakashi had developed something of an irrational loathing for stupidity in his days sitting alone in the classroom, far ahead of everyone else. Why would his father do something so nonsensical? It was stupid.

It also left Kakashi without any idea of what to do for a memorial. He liked to go out and scent the world, take some time for himself to occasionally run with one or two members of the pack just outside Konoha. This was completely different from what his father had liked, whatever that had been. What did someone who was trying to be fully human like? Kakashi understood that his father had been a nontraditional human, so the majority of traditional gifts were out. Sakumo had died for the sake of human connection, but that couldn't be given as a present. Some part of Kakashi's mind whispered otherwise. Sometimes at night his pulse suddenly rose, his hands clenched into claws, and he was forced awake. Upon awaking, he would be angry, and not know why. He never remembered how human connection _could_ be given as a present. Even after death, it was something Kakashi could give his father. But that thought never intruded on his waking life. Kakashi's temper just flared sometimes for no reason. That was all.

_Maybe I could go the other way. If he wanted to be just a human so bad, let him be remembered by wolves. He has to still miss that even if he goes and gets surgery to run away from it, right?_ Well, yeah. It was plainly obvious to him. They were half wolf, therefore they would always belong with wolves. Kakashi knew for a fact he would always long for the feeling of furry nuzzles, no matter what. Yes; a memorial among wolves would be more appropriate than anything else. Then his father would understand his mistake, and feel sorry, and never do anything so stupid again.

What reason was there for trying so much to be human, anyway? All Kakashi's classmates wanted to do was spar, with weapons and on two legs. All they talked about was human business, missions, who had a crush on who. Kakashi always left the play yard as soon as the last topic was mentioned. He knew from experience it would result in way too many females shyly or boldly claiming him as the target of their affections. About the only thing he liked to participate in was the occasional contest of strength. It was like how the young pups in the pack wrestled, fighting for the right to boss others around. It had been a shock to learn that humans did any of the same things that wolves did. But most of the time it was all talk, and at those times Kakashi drifted away to be anywhere else.

The vision of Hatake Sakumo broke apart. Kakashi's legs twitched. His eyes scanned the ground reflexively, before he reminded himself that he was in a human village, walking along a street populated with people. If there was a snake near anyone's ankles, he would already know. It probably never would have reached this far into the village without someone making up a D-rank mission to catch and kill it. Kakashi doubled his efforts to locate the snake, so he could avoid having to interact with a bunch of obnoxious Genin.

He came to a stop against a signpost covered with flyers. One of them said something about something, all in overly large blue font on an orange background. Kakashi felt like tearing it down for distracting his senses from the intriguing smell. He settled for turning his back to the flyer instead. The more he inhaled, the stranger it became. His first sniff had picked up the most obvious notes, the ones that screamed _Get away! _and _Jump!_ Every subsequent sniff turned Kakashi's mind on to a growing mystery. Those warning notes sketched the bare skeleton of a serpent's scent, but all the flesh of it was wrong! Kakashi had smelled many snakes in the forest. None were like this. He became as excited as a normal eight year old. This was officially the most interesting thing he'd found _ever_.

Kakashi tracked the smell to a ramen stand, employing his ninja training so that it wasn't obvious he was following anything at all. He ended up pretending to have his attention caught by an amazing deal on pork ramen. The deal really _was_ amazing; he'd come back and try it, definitely. Kakashi took as much notice of this as he took of the lone customer sitting inside. He saw the standard Konoha uniform; it could have been anyone. But wait; was that a few strands of black interrupting the red spiral?

Kakashi retreated to a safer distance, where the wind could alert him to any movement of the target, but Kakashi would be safely out of sight. He racked his brain for information on the smell capabilities of snakes. He knew they didn't have noses. They smelled with some kind of special things around their tongue somewhere. But how would that translate to a…

Kakashi blinked. Until that thought, he had not been consciously aware of changing his target. He wasn't looking for a snake now. He was thinking about that _person_ he'd seen. His heart beat fast, and something burned in Kakashi's throat. Was it…? Could it be…? He blinked away tears that came from nowhere to invade his eyes. Someone to talk about the forest with… Kakashi's temper flared again. Those were some of his best memories of his father! Why had they not had more?

The target left the ramen stand and began to move south, away from Kakashi. Kakashi headed east, beginning to angle south after a couple blocks. The more leeway he gave the wind, the harder it was, but he was fairly sure the target was still heading south. Eventually, the scent of the target stopped shifting so much, and Kakashi started getting a consistent signal. He must have shortened the distance between them so the wind couldn't change as much. Kakashi followed the scent a little ways north. He'd somehow managed to get in front of the target.

Or behind, as the case may be. The target was facing away from him on a bench, enjoying what seemed to be a popsicle. He was fully relaxed, as leisurely as any shinobi on a day off. Kakashi's jaw dropped open as he recognized one of the Hokage's students, the legendary Sannin! He'd heard of them, of course, but Sannin and Chunin did _not_ go in the same circles at all. Doubly so for Kakashi, who generally did not mingle. To meet one here was an opportunity he might never get again. Kakashi was determined to take full advantage of it, because he only now made the connection between people's whispers of snakelike features and his own desire for someone else like himself. Kakashi berated himself for being stupid. But only for a second, because in another second he was leaving cover and approaching the bench, with no time to focus on anything else.

He reached out and touched the back of the bench, behind and to the left of the Hokage's student. Nothing happened, but Kakashi had no doubt he was not being ignored. "Forest of Death, 5 o'clock, the tallest tree overlooking the tower," Kakashi whispered. He turned and walked away, like he hadn't just changed his life forever.

At 5 o'clock, Kakashi sat in a high branch of the tallest tree overlooking Ground 44's central tower, staring at birds. The birds in this training ground were fascinating. Their appearance was nothing special, but Kakashi loved to stare at their behavior. Ground 44 had left its mark in these birds as clearly as a stamp to their breasts. They fluttered out at the very end of the smallest twigs that would take their weight, every few seconds lifting into the air and settling down again. They paid no mind to the wolf boy sitting there watching them, because if he moved they could easily see him and avoid him. The birds' fluttering was because of all the tree-climbing giant insects and snakes they had to worry about. There could be one clinging to the underside of those twigs right now. Kakashi had the feeling that an experienced birdwatcher could identify exactly what this little patch of the food chain was like from their behavior alone.

The smell of snake came from above. Kakashi couldn't possibly mistake it for a real snake. Not only was it fleshed out wrong, but it had arrived too suddenly for an animal. He continued to stare at the birds. Secretly, his heart was pounding in his chest. Kakashi resisted the urge to fidget his toes. He was very nervous, and very convinced that this was the most important thing in his entire life and he'd _better not screw it up._

There was silence for several minutes. Then came a voice. It sighed, almost a part of the wind. "My patience has been rewarded." Kakashi twitched his ears, unsure what to make of it. It was a raspy voice, which would normally be unpleasant, but it worked somehow. Maybe it was more sibilant than raspy. It definitely wasn't the rasp of sickness. Kakashi could live with it very well, he decided.

"What were you waiting for?" he asked.

"A second chance." Kakashi heard that he would not be getting any further explanation.

"Me too," he answered. The Sannin were all around his father's age, of an older generation. Kakashi had realized a long time ago that he'd never actually known anyone like himself. His father would never have looked into the forest like this. Maybe this time could be different. Someone as smart as he was, who looked in the same places, who Kakashi could understand anything about for the first time ever. Of course, he also would not be providing any further explanation.

The Snake Sannin chuckled. "It's been a year, almost. My condolences."

Kakashi couldn't be surprised one of the Sannin knew all about his father. It was one of those stories too interesting not to spread. "I'm trying to think of something, but it's hard," he admitted. "I have no idea what he liked."

"Hmm," the voice said. "Flowers. He appreciated those. I don't recall what kind."

Kakashi immediately had some idea what second chance the Snake Sannin had been waiting for. It wasn't all conscious yet, but he had it. He just had to wait for his thinking mind to piece together what some other part of his mind already had.

"Thank you." Kakashi started to see in his imagination a little stand of flowers next to something of his father's, with the wolves smelling the item and whining their grief. It could definitely work.

"I'm quite happy to help." A dark shape dropped down between Kakashi and the fluttering birds, sandwiching him between it and the tree's trunk. Kakashi would have preferred to be on the outer side so he could keep watching the birds. His hands curled in a quiet show of displeasure and frustration.

The glittering golden snake eyes of the man watching him paid no mind. The Sannin smiled as if nothing was wrong, just two friends having a chat. "I knew him. He was okay. When you know where the memorial will be, let me know."

Kakashi finished sizing up his companion. There was no threat here, and he'd been given the perfect way out of his natural suspicion. "You knew my father?"

The Sannin nodded once. "He was annoying as hell. But I've known worse." His eyes narrowed as if gazing off at something unpleasant.

Kakashi nodded. It sounded like they were in agreement. That nod was the first time he'd admitted to anyone that he had problems with his father. Kakashi consulted his gut and found that it'd been long enough; he had long since stopped giving a crap about what people thought of him. Well, what humans thought of him, anyway. He kept eyes on the Snake Sannin, waiting for some response. A normal person would expect more loyalty to his family. Was the Sannin a normal person, or trustworthy?

The snake was regarding him with the same kind of look. "I hear you're known as a genius. Kakashi, is it? Already a Chunin at your age."

Kakashi nodded. "You're one of the Sannin. The smart one."

A wide involuntary grin spread across the snake's face in a network of spreading cracks. He finally gave up on trying to control it and laughed to himself. "The smart one! I'll have to remember that."

It was difficult to avoid overhearing angry women complaining about the white-haired Sannin, and the other one was known for being stubborn, strong, and more stubborn. Kakashi shrugged. All he knew about this one was that he had also been thought of as a child genius. That was enough.

The Sannin looked at him with approval fresh in his eyes, and obvious confidence that Kakashi was no threat. "I'm Orochimaru. And yes, your father was annoying as hell. He never did any...unusual things, let's call them."

Kakashi's eyes widened. Did they, perhaps, agree for the same reasons? It was a clan secret that they were anything unusual, but then again there wasn't supposed to be anybody outside the clan that was like them. Kakashi still didn't know anything about the smell abilities of snakes, but maybe snakes had some other abilities. If anyone could see past Sakumo's mask, this one could.

Orochimaru shrugged again. "Enough about that. How has it been for you?"

Kakashi looked away. "Annoying," he decided to say. What he really felt was that he'd like to never have to put up with other people again, but that could be construed badly.

Orochimaru chuckled. What did that mean? "I understand that," he muttered. His golden eyes glittered in a strange way. Amusement? Kakashi wondered if he knew what Kakashi had really meant to say. _Underneath the underneath. That's where shinobi talk. _

The wolf boy shrugged. "What about you?" Spoken underneath the underneath, that translated to: _Why are you a snake? _

The Sannin looked around. "I discover new things every day in this place. Do you see those birds? I hadn't seen them do that before."

_He doesn't know? _Kakashi blinked in surprise. How could someone not know why they were half snake? Perhaps - _No. He's like me. He looks around places like this. He can't be from my clan, because he would never have gotten the surgery._ The Snake Sannin was still watching the birds, looking away from Kakashi. Kakashi watched him with full focus. A mystery, then. It was difficult for someone like Kakashi to find mysteries. He knew then that he would always be on the lookout for this man, who held the first mystery.

He looked away as Orochimaru turned back. "I have," he said. Underneath the underneath: _I have mystery too. Look for me._

The Sannin shifted. "I could use a little snack," he murmured softly. Kakashi's jaw dropped open again. That was really forward! It was...exactly what he wanted. Kakashi was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to be hunting with someone he barely knew. _If we're the same…_ But who cared about caution or manners? It wasn't like Kakashi had ever gone hunting with his father, or anyone else. His eyes started to hurt. Kakashi leaped from the tree, reaching the ground and gaining control of himself before it was noticeable.

The slightest puffing sound of earth squishing announced Orochimaru landing behind him. "There." And he was off, leaving Kakashi with the choice to follow or not. He hadn't really been invited, after all. Kakashi felt that was one message there was no need to say this way, since he didn't actually have any choice. Not if he planned to live with himself after today. He inhaled the thick scents of the forest and plunged forward, after his new companion.

.

The hunt was...okay. It wasn't quite what Kakashi had hoped for. It struck him as more like the hunt of two shinobi, rather than the hunt of two beasts. He'd had to actually see Orochimaru at one point, and exchange hand signals. Hand signals! But after all, he had no idea what kind of prey a human-sized snake would select to pursue, nor what hunting style such a snake would have. Would he prefer to make the killing blow from ambush, or run the prey down, or end its life with a highly efficient kunai and call it done? In return, Kakashi had had to signal his own intent to chase the prey, which he felt should have been obvious from his canine heritage, but he wasn't hunting with a mind reader. Without the hand signals, the choice of prey would have escaped him for certain. Kakashi swallowed frustration and promised himself that it would get better if they hunted together again. This was how two hunters came to know each other. In the meantime, he peeled his segment of giant centipede very carefully so there would be no exoskeleton shards in the flesh.

Orochimaru finished first and rolled the soft flesh around his mouth. "Interesting texture," he commented. He seemed to like it well enough.

Kakashi hesitated after peeling his segment. The mask rule was very clear: it could only be taken off around others of the clan, and only under conditions of assured secrecy. If he was with an outsider or there was the slightest chance an outsider could be watching, no taking it off. Kakashi was happy enough with his cloth uniform and how it got stains which needed to be washed out, thus giving him excuses to be by himself on missions. He'd be damned more than he already was if he put in all the effort to learn the super secret eating and drinking techniques, though. His father wasn't knowledgeable on them anyway. The mask was the first item of clothing Kakashi replaced with darkness, after the first teaching session of the secret eating techniques. He pretended allowing food to pass through his darkness was jutsu mastery the next time, and they'd both been relieved. His father had never even asked how Kakashi mastered that so fast. Still Kakashi hesitated. This outsider was an excellent shinobi who could probably tell he wasn't using special eating techniques, but the real reason that Kakashi hesitated was because he wasn't sure if he wanted to keep his mask on now. They were alike.

Orochimaru swallowed and looked sideways at his young friend. "I need something to call you," he announced. "How do you feel about Puppy?"

Kakashi looked at him with a bewildered look that said, _Why would you ever suggest that?_ "You're weird," he retorted.

Orochimaru stayed silent, but his eyes changed. He seemed to be looking somewhere else again. Kakashi swung his legs back and forth off the side of the branch. "It's fine." It was accurate because Kakashi _was_ still a pup, and revealed that the snake definitely did know what species he and his father were. Thoughts raced through Kakashi's mind. _Annoying as hell. No unusual things. He was fine. _Kakashi at age 4, wondering why his father wouldn't come hunting with him and the rest of the pack. Kakashi's heart beating too fast just an hour ago from the thought of someone like himself.

_Is he like me? Did he wonder about someone like himself too? But my father can't be that. He won't talk with anyone about the forest…_

Kakashi pushed himself upright and pulled his mask down. He sank his teeth into the centipede's flesh, wincing at its strange texture. No matter. He tolerated it well enough, ripping it to shreds before swallowing it all at once. His teeth were the teeth of a wolf, but much smaller and malformed. Kakashi had no idea if his father had known about this or not. All Sakumo had said was that the fang-teeth would grow in at 13, and he would have to wear a mask to cover them because it was a clan secret. Or, Sakumo had sheepishly scratched his head and muttered, there are ways to get the fang teeth removed after they grow in. They aren't really necessary or anything… Even at three years old, Kakashi felt that his father was telling him a great insult. Teeth connected to wolves, which were his family. If Father was trying to accuse him of wanting to leave his family…! Sakumo had explained all this with Kakashi's first mask, if he chose to wear it, there on the cushion beside them. Kakashi had snatched it up and held it over his mouth, fury blazing in his eyes.

Sakumo definitely had not known at that time. The mask was offered as a choice because, for most of the clan, it _was_ one. All Hatake clan members effectively had to choose between accepting their fang teeth or not at a very young age. If they needed more time to make that decision, the price was having to invent a plausible reason for suddenly starting to wear a mask years into their career. For Kakashi, wearing a mask was a given. The fact that his father had acted as if he had a choice was proof that he had known nothing of his son's dentition. Not when the wolf boy was three years old, anyway. Kakashi didn't wear a mask all the time, so his father could have found out at some other time, like when Kakashi was sleeping. Probably he didn't. That made Orochimaru the first human person to know, Kakashi realized. He licked his lips and settled into his meal without looking at Orochimaru, as if this was normal.

He pulled his mask up and scrutinized Orochimaru's every move after he was done eating. The Snake Sannin was also pretending nothing was unusual at all. When he was done, he looked away from Kakashi, at the remains of the giant insect. "That looks like dinner for another two days," the snake announced. "Unless you want any, of course."

Kakashi shook his head. Meals ought to be an experience. Chase squirrels or go out, that was what he did. Storing food seemed too unexciting to bother with.

Orochimaru shrugged. "In that case, it's mine." He tore off the insect's plates of armor, leaving the rest flexible and able to be rolled into a small ball. "Puppy?"

Kakashi was still scrutinizing his every move. Revealing his teeth for the first time was a very big deal. He wondered if he'd done it right, if it hadn't been maybe a little foolish to just trust his instincts and go for it. Should he have thought more, or did overthinking spoil the moment? Kakashi pondered using his _other_ powers to remove Orochimaru's memory if he laughed or told anyone or otherwise ruined the sanctity of this occasion. Revealing his teeth was something he should only do with someone he really trusted. Dammit! Why hadn't Kakashi held off, waited until he could at least hunt with this guy?

"I'd like to hunt with you again," Orochimaru said. He was as relaxed as he had been before, like he was on vacation. "As long as you keep this just for us. Will you do that, Puppy?" Thus Orochimaru unwittingly saved his memories.

Kakashi nodded. The Snake Sannin sensed this even with his back turned to the boy, and nodded back. "In that case, we might have something fruitful in time."

.

A week later, Kakashi found a note under his door with a location in Ground 16 and a time. As he returned from that, his nose picked up a strange smell. It was an extremely faint trail of centipede. Kakashi followed it to a house that smelled of snake, with mingled human scents overlaid. He slipped a note under the door next time, and from then on it alternated.

The memorial was three weeks after that first meeting. Kakashi told several people something vague about the chosen site being personally important to his father. Some of the other students who came jumped when the wolves unexpectedly showed up, but Kakashi continued on with his business, giving them no opportunity to leave. The white-haired Sannin came, and the other one too, both following Orochimaru's lead. They paid their respects as colleagues. Orochimaru paid his respects with a certain something in his body language to indicate he'd known Sakumo as just a little more. The white-haired Sannin looked wistful for some reason. Kakashi pretended to be a small child after the memorial and asked about it. The white-haired Sannin mentioned that his teammate had never had many friends, and he'd hoped things would go well with Sakumo. He lacked knowledge of why it hadn't. The blond Sannin had no reactions of interest to either of her teammates.

Kakashi confirmed his suspicions several meetings later, when Orochimaru led him to a small and quiet place and proceeded to rant about Jiraiya, his white-haired teammate, for several minutes. His body language indicated there was a little more there. Kakashi didn't ask about it. The way Orochimaru mentioned their time apart from the rest of the village was changing. Two meetings ago, Orochimaru had canceled. Kakashi had dropped by his house and tasted something very disturbed in the scent there. Orochimaru had been quiet in the meeting before the one where he ranted, always staring off at something else and telling Kakashi to "always, _always_ watch out. People can fool themselves as well as everyone else. You have to be able to see them for what they are, even if they don't." His hands stayed curled that time, and Kakashi had been motivated to try to offer comfort. He couldn't remember ever trying to comfort someone before. It didn't help very much. Orochimaru had left that meeting just as tense as before, so Kakashi wasn't surprised that he'd turned angry and started ranting this time.

Kakashi left with Orochimaru's rant still in his ears, and very worried. There had been several mentions of the village in there, as if Jiraiya stood in Orochimaru's mind as a representative of Konoha in general. With that in mind, the things he'd had to say about Jiraiya could be construed very, very badly. Kakashi puzzled over the content of that rant all the next day, until he was assigned a difficult mission. It was all about the past: Jiraiya was always like this, even as a kid he was, you could tell he was going to be a moron, let me tell you about this one mission he did that sums up everything about him. The mission in question was Jiraiya's quest to find some mythical creature in the mountains, and he'd apparently come back with some exaggerated tales of fighting the creature, which he had clearly failed to find, all drawn in crayon. Kakashi doubted the reality of the crayon. But more importantly, why now? Why tip over these unshared grievances and spill them out to Kakashi now? He itched to know what had happened. It must have been something very important and very bad.

Kakashi was not surprised when Orochimaru left the village a year later, and even less surprised when Jiraiya failed to convince him to stay. He considered telling Jiraiya that something had been wrong, but thought better of it. What could change now? Most likely, that event the year before was only one of several things. It wouldn't help Jiraiya anyway, to be blaming himself in addition to grieving over Orochimaru's defection. Kakashi kept silent on the outside.

On the inside, he mourned their time together. Somehow, it was easier to be with normal people once he had hunted with someone like himself. The fact that they weren't like him was far less irritating after that. Kakashi began to count Guy as a friend, and Asuma, and also Rin and Obito. He probably should have started with his teammates, but they had too many accumulated memories of his coldness to warm up to him very quickly. Rin came around first. Kakashi thanked everything he could thank for her being very subtle about her affections. Obito was weird and harder for Kakashi to understand than anyone else, but he found his reserves of patience had somehow expanded after a month and a half of understanding Orochimaru and being understood. So he made kind-of friends with Obito too. Obito's patience was not so expanded, probably because he didn't have any family or other friends beyond Rin and Kakashi. That might turn into a problem. Kakashi thought of keeping an eye on him in case Obito's optimism failed to hold him high enough to compensate.

But still Kakashi could be found once a week, swinging his legs back and forth on a tall tree in the Forest of Death. He wondered how Orochimaru was doing, if the Snake Sannin was alright, and if their paths would come together again. Sometimes a serpent would slither by, and it would not bite. Kakashi drew everything Orochimaru had done for him around himself like a cloak, and promised himself they would. They were alike. If their paths did not draw together again, it would be a sign that reality was incorrect. Kakashi couldn't fix it, but he was aware of his power to break it.

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**A/N: I've said this story started as a thought experiment, with a few scenes to illustrate it. The Memories are those scenes. I have 3 planned as of now. No, I don't know why I thought this was a good place to insert the first one. I just did.**


	9. Find The Serpent

**A/N: This is why my main story has a schedule for it. I had this nice rhythm going where I was getting a chapter of this story out every week and a few days, until last chapter. The first Memory was so easy to write, I got it out in 4 days, which broke my rhythm, aaaaaaaand now it's been two months. This always happens. Well, have fun with this one. Apologies for the wait. **

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Orochimaru's eyes bored holes through Kakashi's skull. They were no longer dazed. They were clear, sharp, bright yellow, and _murderous._

Kakashi shrugged. "Well, it was the obvious conclusion to draw."

The snake did not look any happier. "You're right, it is," he confirmed. "Come, Puppy. Let me tell you a few things."

He grabbed Kakashi's wrist and took him on a walk through the halls. They settled into a rather fast pace, silently covering the majority of the small base in only a few minutes. Kakashi maintained the same speed as his serpentine companion, staying a little ways behind and to the left. It was a good position for watching Orochimaru's body language.

Body language, in this case, revealed close to nothing. Kakashi's other senses were far more revealing. Orochimaru's soul was in several different states of turbulence; not all of them could be anger. Once more, Kakashi was tempted to look deeper, to find out what was causing the Snake Sannin to react like this. Orochimaru had not been happy, once he regained a mostly aware state. Kakashi's conclusion about the ghost had made him even less happy. There was something there.

Kakashi forced himself to be as patient as he had always been. It had worked with his students and friends, hadn't it?

He very carefully avoided answering that question and pretended it was rhetorical.

"Here, Puppy." They were on a course that would take them to the library. Naturally, that was where Orochimaru turned and opened the door, gestured for Kakashi to enter and take a seat. He closed the door with seeming tranquility and took his seat on the table with Kakashi, sitting just as they had sat for their earlier discussion.

Kakashi took a shot in the dark. "You know more than you've shared."

"Yes." The snake forced himself to adopt a gentler tone. "I did not intend to hide anything. I simply hadn't thought about those things very much, and did not know they were relevant."

"The appearance of the ghost must have changed that. What did you see?" _What _could_ he have seen? _The unnaturalness of the spirit's situation was a siren call, beckoning to Kakashi, making him thirst for information. He wondered if it was a demonic thing, or just morbid curiosity.

Orochimaru shifted in his seat, and began. "Its form was shadowy and blurred, with no details," he told Kakashi. "Except for its eyes. Its eyes appear to be the one thing it remembers. They have a mostly human structure, except that the center of the eye is larger than normal, so the whites are hardly visible. The pupil is enormous and round, and the iris is a brilliant shade of green. It doesn't have well-defined boundaries; the color bleeds into the whites somewhat."

Kakashi painted a vivid mental picture of that and filed it away for later examination. "The eyes show many things. If it can remember that much, then hopefully it's not too far gone. So then, what did its form look like?"

"It has no exact form."

"..." This was some contradictory information he was receiving. Kakashi turned enough to see Orochimaru's profile and raised an eyebrow.

Orochimaru shuddered. "Dammit...Excuse my cowardice." He shivered some more, and growled in displeasure at this. "That thing is _fucking creepy._"

Kakashi's eyes went wide. That was a very strong appraisal, considering who it came from. Meanwhile, it explained a lot. "Mah, don't be too harsh on yourself," he consoled. "We already determined it's unnatural. It's only natural for someone natural, like you, to perceive the sheer wrongness of it. It _is_ wrong. And it may be very dangerous." His voice sobered. "Approach what you don't want to talk about at your own pace, but do approach. If it's not too far gone, perhaps I can save it as well as you."

Orochimaru chuckled mirthlessly. "That student of yours is really something special. If this world had mass communication technology, he would rule it."

"Naruto would never turn his powers of persuasion that way." _Hopefully. _"Now get on with it, princess."

Kakashi heard substantially more mirth in Orochimaru's laugh this time, and congratulated himself. The snake capitulated. "All right, but only because you asked nicely.

"This isn't the first time I've seen it." His voice became low and ominous. "I felt something crawl in my spine, some years ago. It was during Sasuke's training. I was walking down the hallway, rather pleased with myself, and then _that_ feeling happened. I was immediately alert, but I believe I already knew it was nothing I had ever encountered before. Enemy shinobi wouldn't have sent that kind of feeling up my back. I loathe to admit it, but the closest comparison is the fear a child feels at the darkness. Young children have an ability, which no one else possesses, to truly and accurately perceive themselves. That kind of fear is the knowledge that the child is utterly powerless and vulnerable, turned outward. Growing up creates the illusion that you have some power over the world, but meeting something not of this world tends to shatter it."

Kakashi nodded. "Do you miss it?"

"What?"

The demon shrugged. "I...tried to look into the dark and feel that, many times. Maybe that ability is one of those things that can only seem good when you don't have it."

Orochimaru paused and seemed to consider this. "Hmm." It was his _Interesting…_ sound. Kakashi guessed that such fear was foundational and, likely, the idea of not having it was so bizarre that it was drawing Orochimaru's attention the same way as the ghost was drawing Kakashi's. It did not feel good to draw this comparison. But, Kakashi acknowledged, he could live with it as long as it made Orochimaru sound like that. That sound and that look were only good things, coming from the snake. Being interested had this way of transforming his entire nature for the better. Kakashi took a quick glance at Orochimaru's soul and smiled. He could live with _anything_ if it fascinated his serpent companion.

"I can remember what it felt like for you later, if you wish. To get back to the point…" Orochimaru hesitated. "I was, at that point, very aware of being small and human. It's the most vulnerable I've ever felt. Thank the gods nobody was around. Then again, this ghost seems skittish. It probably wouldn't have appeared if somebody had been near." Kakashi understood the mixed feelings in that statement. Was that a good thing, or not? He carefully edged a pinky over the matching finger on Orochimaru's hand.

"The entire hall seemed to darken. I had a sudden intuition that the spirit was normally widely distributed, perhaps even through the entire base, and was only condensing. The darkening was because its substance appears black, like black fog. It was all around me, for what was probably a few seconds. I remember it as longer. Then it was small enough that it was only in front of me. It was a giant black cloud, its wisps constantly drifting around like there were flighty spring breezes all around it, with those eyes looking out at me.

"I froze. Like a child who hides under their blanket and stays perfectly still, following the instinct of every prey creature to avoid drawing the predator's gaze. But it _looked_ at me. As if I had not only been seen, but marked." Both of Orochimaru's hands were clenching, and his voice was drawing in. Kakashi added a finger to his tentative grip, and had them both suddenly squeezed as if the snake meant to rip them clean off. He only deadened the pain receptors in that area, saying nothing.

"I was right. It disappeared that time without incident, but I was marked. I don't know why, I don't know how, but that thing's been keeping its unnatural eyes out for me ever since. I thought my _death_, at least, would have stopped it! I see it hasn't. Persistent little…" Kakashi could see the flash of the snake's golden eyes in his mind. The flash of passion (usually, but not limited to, anger) and the shine of interest were his reasons for being here now. He wanted to give Orochimaru a hug very badly. As always, he briefly wondered if sexual desire felt like this, before deciding that it couldn't be because he felt no physical sensations in those areas. The pain of being too far from Orochimaru for his liking matched, though. _The worst of both worlds._

"Ahem." Orochimaru brought himself under control. He returned to attempting to describe his experiences clinically. "That was the first incident. There was a second, towards the end of Sasuke's training. It was very similar to the first, except that this time I was in the library. I must have been looking for something _very_ important, because I'd had echoes of that childlike feeling while in the library before. This time it was not an echo, and I knew that a full manifestation was imminent.

"It formed across from me, near the shelves. I thought about doing something other than freezing, but that was...not possible."

It occurred to Kakashi that Orochimaru had said he would be happy to allow Kakashi to experience the feeling from his memories. The snake was remembering _now,_ wasn't he? Kakashi looked into the emotional portion of the snake's soul, copied the arrangement he found there in his own soul, and experienced a freezing sensation. He literally felt cold, and his lungs stilled as much as they could. His muscles went stiff, but Kakashi paid attention to none of this because his internal organs were in a riot. It was more than basic fear. It was _horror, wrongness, _specific fear, and _oh god why? why? _

Orochimaru went on, somehow. His hunched shoulders looked frozen, even if his voice wasn't. "It looked at me, but in a different way. I think it needed the eye contact to form some kind of bond with me. The marking gave it some power, or… Anyway, it had more power than it had the previous time. It held up something that looked like a little candle flame. I could feel that the flame was very important. The flame must have been tied to me; the other end of that bond from looking in my eyes, maybe. I don't remember the flame going out, because I went out with it."

Kakashi had pushed the arrangement aside in order to be able to listen, but he had not entirely stopped copying Orochimaru's feelings. The specific fear spiked; it must have been a truly incredible adrenaline surge in the snake. Orochimaru's skin did flush and his smell changed, but Kakashi would not have been able to tell its true extent from this alone. He found the headspace to marvel at what training could do for one's control over their mind, heart and body.

The specific fear was not coming down from its peak easily. After ten seconds of silence, during which its levels came down a small amount, Orochimaru swallowed to moisten his throat. "You're copying me, aren't you?" It wasn't a question.

"Yeah." Kakashi had substantially more empathy for his companion's hesitancy now. He almost didn't want to ask Orochimaru to say anything more. But saying more was needed, and he was the only one of them who could escape the mind-rattling memories of fear, so he had to demand it. "I don't understand why there's so much specific fear."

"Specific fear?" Orochimaru's voice was full of dread, as if he already knew what that meant.

"As opposed to the basic kind. What was this _specific_ being doing that seemed threatening?" _I'm asking him to remember being prey. It must be the worst possible memory for a snake. Oh gods, what am I doing? _

Kakashi's self-castigation was cut short as Orochimaru began to shake. Violent shudders wracked his body from head to toe and back again. Orochimaru gave his head an especially strong toss, whipping his hair back and forth. Before everything he'd just released could build up again, he quickly said, "I woke up sometime later, still in the library. I was in a different section. All kinds of material had been taken off the shelves and were piled everywhere."

_Oh, fuck._ "Does that…?" Kakashi wasn't sure he wanted an answer.

Orochimaru shifted his entire position to look Kakashi in the face. His cheeks were gray. "I cleaned up all evidence and got the hell out of there. Kabuto found me shortly. He had received news an hour or so earlier and attempted to deliver it, but he said I had appeared to be very busy with my research and would not acknowledge him."

_Oh, crap._ _No wonder he doesn't want to say anything about the ghost. _The spirit in question moved up several notches in Kakashi's estimation of a "Big Deal." He let go of Orochimaru's feelings entirely; they were too strong and distracting. "It knocked you unconscious and possessed your body," he summarized flatly.

"I...believe so." Orochimaru's eyes flared with anger. It was amazing how many uses he had found for the emotion. "I wasn't surprised. As soon as I saw that it had a vaguely human shape this time, I knew. That..._thing…_"

"And what did it look like just now?" As if he didn't already know.

"Me." Orochimaru met Kakashi's eyes. The bright crystalline yellow clouded over with horror. "In black, and a little blurry, but _me._ Hair, clothes, shoes. Everything."

That changed everything.

.

Kakashi woke up the next morning with a headache and eyes that wouldn't focus. He was unable to guess how much of the night before he had spent sleeping, and how much he had spent awake. The borders between asleep and awake had been difficult to find. Most of it was full of fear, whatever state he was in, so he got no rest regardless. Kakashi did something he had never done before. It was generally good practice to follow the body's own blueprint. It used less energy and less concentration to simply get all the molecules in motion, and otherwise keep interference to a minimum. Making deliberate changes was difficult and shortened the lifespan of the body considerably, but desperate times called for desperate measures…

One radical adjustment of brain chemistry later, Kakashi felt incredibly refreshed and invigorated. His body started to ask for more energy than his limited oxygen supply could provide. He looked into the possibility of getting Orochimaru's sleeping form to lie somewhere other than directly against his chest. Kakashi had his back to the wall, so Orochimaru's body exerted some pressure on his chest. It would have been _less_ difficult to breathe if he had been lying on top of Kakashi.

He moved a hand upward to check Orochimaru's pulse and breathing. The snake seemed to be genuinely and deeply asleep. _The bastard. _Kakashi was envious.

They were curled up together on a small bed in the smallest and darkest room in the base. Even the air felt stiff. Orochimaru had said something about snakes and burrows, but Kakashi thought this was also an appeal to his human side. Like before, the pressure and weight was probably reminding his body of the womb. The small room with its still air provided the pressure, and Kakashi the warmth. Orochimaru was still peacefully asleep. Kakashi lay still and told all his cells to shut up except for his brain cells.

Last night's revelations had upgraded the wolf ninja's sense of urgency to a level last felt while racing to the Valley of the End, praying for Naruto to hold Sasuke there for just a little longer. Something was _wrong_, that wrongness was threatening this beautiful serpent who had saved his life and soul, and another one, equally beautiful, was losing himself minute by minute. Every second that passed was another second less for Kakashi to save him. Kakashi didn't know why he felt such desire to save the ghost. It was something in those eyes...something in Orochimaru… He didn't have time to piece it together now. He'd already pieced it together somewhere in his soul, and that was good enough. Kakashi shook Orochimaru's shoulder as roughly as he could.

"Hmph…" Reluctance. This snake didn't want to get up.

Well, too bad. There was rescuing to be doing. Kakashi shook him again. Orochimaru groaned and wiggled away from Kakashi, which allowed him to get a better grip and shake again. The Snake Sannin's eyes opened.

Kakashi was already crouched over him, waiting for those eyes to focus. He patted Orochimaru gently but firmly on the cheek. "I'm worried," he explained. "Don't ask me why; even I don't know. I want to save the ghost too, more than ever. I'm running out of time to do that. _We_ are. Get up; we have work to do."

Orochimaru sighed and sat up, twisting his neck from side to side. "Any revisions to the plan?" he asked.

Kakashi said, "Hmm." He looked around and shuffled his feet as he thought. "Maybe. The plan was based off our previous assumptions about why the ghost would be following you. It might not be following you for the reason we thought." Kakashi stopped shuffling. "However, that doesn't change the facts that it is the victim of an occult ritual, you have information on many occult rituals, and it needs help. There's no reason to deviate from the plan just yet."

Orochimaru was mostly awake now. "That plan included showing our results to the thing and determining what information it has," he remembered. "That's not going to happen."

"No," Kakashi agreed. "We can talk while we fly. Let's get breakfast and move out."

A very short time later, Kakashi took them up into the clouds before heading over land to the nearest small base. He would have liked to multi-multitask by looking at the three books he already had, but not even a demon's mind can pull that off. He sated the urge by closely listening to and processing everything Orochimaru was saying.

"Why the sudden urgency, Puppy?" Orochimaru asked. He sounded bothered by it. "I would have thought telling you it possessed _my_ body would make you more alarmed, but instead you care about it now."

Ah, jealousy. "It's not that," Kakashi answered. "I'm too distracted to find out exactly why I want to save it so much - I'll figure that out later - but I think it has something to do with something else you said last night. I keep thinking about its eyes. And, why _did_ it latch onto you and take your form? That has something to do with it." Something seemed obvious, like if he looked closely he should be able to say something about the ghost. Damn, but he was distracted!

Orochimaru huffed. "What do you plan to do? Bust into whatever ritual has it trapped, break its bindings, save the day?" The sarcasm was so strong it almost crossed the line back into sincerity. "There are limits to what we can do and how fast we can do it. Not even you could change that."

"It crossed countries and spans of ocean to follow you," Kakashi retorted. "Don't you want to know why?"

"It's chasing me around," Orochimaru said with a shiver.

"No, you're leading it." Kakashi realized he had no idea what he was saying. Where was this coming from? "It's not chasing you, it's following you. You...it… It…"

Something was clear, bright as day, brilliantly obvious. "Dammit!" He was going blind, apparently. "Trust me. For whatever reason, you are clearly very important to it. I would think you'd love to understand your own importance."

"Oh, I do, especially when that importance is looking me in the eyes and taking over my _fucking_ body without any measure of consent. Now, if you would kindly return to what I was _actually asking about_, answer me this: What are you going to do besides what we've already planned to do?"

"I…" _What am I going to do? What can I do? _Kakashi's eyes darted from side to side, seeing not the clouds they glided over but something inside himself. _Where is it? What is it? _

"As I thought." That final verdict on his usefulness brought tears to Kakashi's eyes. He fled from that dismissive voice, seeking an answer, a something, an _anything_, which would disprove it. _The ghost...there's something so clear about it… Damn…_

Finding no solace there, he fled in another direction. "What's this next base like?" he asked.

Orochimaru sniffed. "Who cares? We're not going to be staying for any longer than we have to."

_GAH! _That wasn't the right answer! There was nothing but frustration at every turn, and Orochimaru was being _very unhelpful_ and _the worst friend ever_.

"That wasn't the right answer, and you are being the worst and most unhelpful friend _ever_," Kakashi exclaimed. _Reign it in. Yelling won't help. _Well, well, look who decided to show up and offer an opinion, way too late? His shinobi training! _Actually, that is a good idea…_

"What did you just say?" Orochimaru asked.

"You suck," Kakashi answered. "I know that's not helpful, but -"

"No, not that. A right answer? What is the right answer?"

"Huh?" Kakashi blinked, and realized where he was. "Oh… Um… Huh." That was a good question. "Well...you shouldn't have just dismissed my question like that. I have this unbearable itch, as if something should be very obvious, as if I'm perpetually about to say it. _That_ is the answer to your question," he realized. "That is what I can do. I can put together all these feelings and intuitions and get something we can use out of it all. But I think the answer is one of those difficult ones that you can't find until you stop trying to. I need to get away from thinking about this."

"...In my defense, I am also tired and frustrated."

"I'm not tired!" Kakashi snapped. "So, please, answer my question. What is your base like, in ways which have nothing to do with our current objective?"

"Now I know why your kind chew bones," Orochimaru muttered. "Ah...let's see…"

Having voiced his frustrations and the cause of his tension, Kakashi felt rather silly. _I need a mental vacation, for more reasons than one. _He dedicated himself to not thinking, merely observing the beauty of their environment. He'd pushed them to leave rather early, so the clouds they flew over now still had interesting colors shining through them. The clouds looked like a rather delicate and exotic dessert, with shades of peach, fiery red, and pink marbled through it so delicately that it was impossible to tell where any one color ended and another began. _Sunrise, as seen through a lens of mist. _It was something that could only be seen from above the was surely one of, if not _the_, greatest advantage of being a demon. Only a demon could fly above the clouds and still maintain a perfect bearing during the day. The required navigation technology for anyone else to do so had yet to be invented in this world.

Disappointment; those same senses told him he was approaching the location. _If I plummet straight down when we get there, I can fly on for a few more minutes. _Kakashi lowered them into the clouds. The soft touch of the cloud mist inspired him to wonder what Heaven felt like, because surely it felt like this. Fully submerged now, there was no indication they were moving at all. It was silence, rest, and the cool whispers of water against the skin. Kakashi's mask disappeared, and he opened his mouth. Vapor caught in his teeth and tore, leaving behind shreds of cloud. Something about that made him start to salivate. He thought of sugar.

"I'm sorry, Puppy." Orochimaru broke the silence very gently. "You do understand, though."

"Shhh." _Nothing more about that._

"Mm." The clouds obligingly swallowed all traces of sound, allowing Orochimaru to move on without pausing to wait for his words to dissipate. "There is something in my places of refuge that feels a little like this."

"Oh?"

"Yes." Orochimaru's breath tickled the back of Kakashi's neck, momentarily distracting him with concerns about how accurate Jiraiya's books were. Would he really know what sexual desire felt like if he encountered it? How accurate were the Pervert Sage's descriptions? Orochimaru's breath was warm, and made Kakashi feel very soft. He would have liked to go to sleep. Was that a possible form of desire?

"It was an accident," Orochimaru went on. "I never intended to build such a place. It started because I had thoughts already of founding a village, and I got the fanciful idea to build my first base of operations near where I would found it, and include a large open stage in the plans. It might be useful for addressing great numbers of people, or at least propping up my position by looking as if I was ready to do so at any moment."

"We have to land now," Kakashi warned. He secured Orochimaru with straps of darkness, and allowed the air to fold his wings up high over his head. After fluttering his wings forward to counteract their forward momentum, Kakashi relaxed and gave himself over to the freedom of falling like a dead stone. "So what happened?"

Orochimaru had to speak louder to be heard over the rushing air. "The stage was built," he said at normal volume directly into Kakashi's ear. "But it didn't stay empty."

Kakashi turned off his other ear, which was doing nothing more than distracting him. "Oh?"

"I was there when it was completed; everything was normal. But when I came back later, after it had been left alone, I found what was supposed to be a large, empty stage suddenly occupied by a gigantic stone snake!"

"_What?_" Kakashi remembered learning about this, but the information he'd learned did not match what Orochimaru was saying. "After your death, I did hear of a base with a giant snake statue on a stage, but it wasn't the one where you founded the Hidden Sound village."

Orochimaru shouted, "That's because there is no statue. None of my bases have snake statues. They all have a stage if they have the room for one, but that's just because she needs somewhere to go. Every stage is empty, except for the one in the base I'm currently occupying. She likes me."

Kakashi flared his wings, beginning the process of slowing their descent. "She? It's alive?"

"I'm not sure," Orochimaru continued. Kakashi undeafened his ear and began to swoop in wide circles, bleeding off momentum. "I think so, but she is very clearly made of stone, and inactive except for when nobody's looking."

"How do you know it's a she?"

Orochimaru fidgeted. "I just get that feeling, Puppy. She feels hauntingly familiar, in a forgotten sort of way. Like something from too long ago for me to recognize it any more. I don't recognize her, but being in her presence is comforting. Almost...motherly. At least, I guess so from what I've read about mothers."

That rang a bell. Hardly daring to believe it, Kakashi asked, "You...have to read to understand certain feelings?"

"Of course. That's just what happens when you're a different species from your parents." Orochimaru held tighter to Kakashi's shoulders as the straps disappeared. "Even if I did have instincts as strong or as complete as a fully human child, it still would have gotten in the way of her interactions with me. It's difficult to pretend there's nothing different about your child when it's so obvious."

_Wow. _Of course, not being able to fully bond with your parents was very sad, but Kakashi had heard or seen a lot of messages implying that his condition was sad too, as if lacking desire meant he would never find love. He had wondered if other people really had lives so single-mindedly focused on that one thing, and pitied them right back. His only single-minded, utterly undeniable, constant desire was the desire for company, and here was someone else who had to read books to understand common feelings. _I really should feel bad for him,_ he thought,_ but I'm too busy celebrating. That's very selfish of me. _

"My apologies," he said when Orochimaru released his shoulders and stood on his own two feet. "I should be very saddened to hear that, but I'm more selfish than I realized. I hope you've gotten as much satisfaction as you can, reading about mothers." _Oh, _now_ the sadness and sympathy hits? _

Orochimaru tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, Puppy?"

"Do you remember what I said about why I like to read Jiraiya's books?" Orochimaru nodded. Kakashi scratched his head. "Well, I've never found someone else who has a similar experience, of having to read about what is common experience to everyone else. Until now."

"Ah...I hadn't thought about that." Orochimaru smirked. "Now that you remind me, that is an interesting parallel, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Kakashi smiled and looked around. They stood in front of a small, circular hovel, in the middle of a field of tall grass. Anyone else might have mistaken it for a farmer's grain silo; Kakashi already knew it had a trapdoor in the floor leading below ground. "Does this one have a stage?"

Orochimaru searched his memory. "I believe it does, although the space is rather cramped. Do you want to meet her, Puppy?"

"I do." Kakashi looked up at the clouds. They were off-white, the sunrise having mostly faded by now, but looked no less wise. "I think she can help."


	10. Seek The Serpent's Wisdom

**A/N: And just like that, another month. Time gets weird when I'm not paying attention to it. **

**I've reached another writing milestone! More on this at the end of the chapter. **

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Orochimaru complimented Kakashi on the usefulness of his powers as the wolf ninja swept aside the great quantities of props that covered the trapdoor. "If you hadn't been born into a ninja's life, you could have been a farmer or merchant," the snake teased.

Kakashi paused in his movements. He hadn't technically been born. No demon could be, what with being of a completely different nature from reality, and all. But, semantics aside… He did _feel_ just as if this body was truly his, and it matched his soul perfectly. It was kind of accurate to treat it as if it was his own because of this. He resumed lifting hay bales and sweeping away loose straw, deciding not to mention the semantics.

The trapdoor, once revealed, looked old and rusty. It had noticeable gaps between its splintered wooden planks, through which one could glimpse a disused, dusty shaft leading down to some poor farmer's cellar. It creaked when Kakashi poked it. Everything about it had this way of reminding one of home and the simple parts of life. Kakashi nodded. The tag stuck to the underside of the trapdoor was doing its job very well. Any shinobi had to respect the artistry.

Orochimaru performed several seals that Kakashi would never have put together in a million years, and the door swung open on its own. From this side, its wood was sturdy, imposing, and very well kept. _Woe betide the army that tries to break that down. _The shaft was somewhat dusty, but it was lined with smooth stone and its descent into ominous, cold darkness proceeded heedless of the warm morning sunlight. Kakashi had to respect this, too. Even he was creeped out, and he knew where all the hidden tags were and what kind of trap protected the hidden entrance at the bottom.

Orochimaru descended first, leaving Kakashi to close the door behind them. The wolf ninja paid extra attention to the feeling of sunlight in his hair and took an extra lungful of the sweet-smelling air before he reluctantly lowered the trapdoor, sealing himself into darkness.

The base was pitch black as they opened the hidden door, which was no surprise. What was a surprise was the ease with which Orochimaru lit the entire hallway with a simple jutsu. _Everything must still be fueled, which means this base was fully shut down before being abandoned, most likely with the expectation that it would be returned to. Was it only active temporarily? If so, what was it used for? _Kakashi knew very little about the area this base was located in. It was possible there could be some kind of seasonal or annual phenomenon which this base was built to study. If there was time, he would ask Orochimaru about it.

"This way, Puppy." They descended further.

After examining the walls, giving a decorous silence time to settle, Kakashi nodded in the direction they were walking. "As long as we're here, are there any other interesting phenomena I would like to know about?"

"Hmm." The snake shrugged. "Not that I am aware of at this moment. Of course, something may have slipped my mind."

"Of course." _Eh, it's debatable how much I really wanted to know in the first place. Haven't I got enough to deal with?_

Orochimaru looked at him from his peripheral vision. "What kind of help do you expect her to provide regarding this ghost?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I won't know that until I know precisely what she is. I do think that, regardless of what she is, the chances are good that she's powerful enough to be of some assistance."

"Unlikely." Orochimaru sounded disappointed. "Intuition tells me that, whatever she is, her power is running low. Perhaps, in some other time, she was stronger. Now, she takes the form of stone and lies immobile and inactive nearly all the time."

Kakashi sighed. That was disappointing. "Well, knowledge is power too, if she still has the strength to share it. Hmm...do you have any idea what she is, or what her strength is based in?"

Orochimaru hissed softly between his teeth. "There is one thing more frustrating than anything else, and that is the sense of being just on the edge of knowledge. I have already described what it feels like to be around her. I think that feeling itself is crucial information, if only I could understand it. I'm just not making the right connection. It drives me in circles, Puppy. It really does."

Kakashi debated with himself for a short while. _ She must be very important. It's possible that, if there's a real emergency, it might be necessary to look into her past and see for myself what she is. I might, perhaps, want to keep that option open for the direst of emergencies._

That tenuous plan flew out the window five minutes later, as Kakashi and Orochimaru stood in front of a giant stone snake, moodlit by torches that lined the walls. The flickering light shone off the serpent's eyes in a way that was distinctly eerie if one did not already know she was alive. If one knew, it made perfect sense. Kakashi wondered if she was watching him. If what Orochimaru said was the truth, she was already watching over the snake. Why?

"I can't decide if that's a relief or not," Kakashi murmured. He looked closer. Was that just the flickering torchlight, or had there been movement in her eyes?

"What is?" Orochimaru had a small smile on his face, and his voice was pleasant and relaxed. Kakashi would have given the snake a hug, done _anything_ to hear and see him talk like that for as long as possible, but…

"She's invisible. I can't see her with my demon senses," Kakashi explained.

The relaxation disappeared. Kakashi's tail still wagged at the look he now saw in Orochimaru's eyes, but it was an intensely alert, focused look. _Still good. I like that look very much. _The snake glanced around Kakashi, as though looking for any other changes the demon might be experiencing. "Is this common?"

"No." Kakashi looked up at the stone serpent that was the closest thing Orochimaru had to a mother. His tail started to wag. _I hope she likes me. It would be very awkward to be introduced to his family and receive a cold welcome. That's never a good thing for a relationship. _

Orochimaru looked quite puzzled as he observed Kakashi's tail wagging in this way. Kakashi smiled under his mask. The snake looked unsure if he wanted to smile back or get frustrated. He did neither, instead tilting his head in curiosity. "When does it happen, and how often?"

Kakashi's tail stopped mid-wag. _Huh? I thought he already knew. We've talked about how I only have knowledge of the neutral world before… _The wolf ninja thought back over every time they had discussed the different parts of reality. To his surprise, he could not remember ever spelling it out. _Oh. There is no reason why I should expect him to know. I really need to stop assuming things are as obvious to other people as they are to me. _It was a bad habit of his, and one he would have needed to break if he had continued to take on students.

His tail started to wag _Embarrassment_. "Sorry, sorry, " he apologized to Orochimaru. "It can be hard to tell what other people find obvious sometimes. I thought you already knew - the reason I can't know anything about the divine part of reality is because my senses can't see it. Light is invisible and impenetrable. I can't even see that it exists, like normal eyes can see darkness - it's just a gaping hole in the middle of the world."

Orochimaru's eyes widened. "Divinity? Are you saying -"

"Your mother's divine, yes." Kakashi nodded. "I was wondering about keeping the possibility open that, if we really needed to, I might look into her past and find out for myself all those questions I asked on the way down. This eliminates that possibility, and I can't tell if that's a good thing or not."

"She -" Orochimaru sputtered. "Well, alright, but more importantly, you can't see the one class of objects that can hurt you?"

"..." Kakashi blinked stupidly. None of what Orochimaru had just communicated had ever occurred to him. _He's worried about me? _His tail began to wag without him being aware of it. _He worries about me…_

"Puppy." Orochimaru's harsh tone snapped him back to reality.

"Um, yes. Angels, holy objects, holy places… All are difficult or impossible to see." Kakashi remembered the sun. "Although, it's not quite true that they would hurt me. I have this body to serve as a shield, remember? There's no danger." He smiled and shrugged to convey that this was not a pressing concern. He wouldn't want to take advantage of Orochimaru's newly discovered capacity for worry to give the snake a heart attack, or anything.

Orochimaru was silent, his eyes flickering over Kakashi's features for some time as if searching for signs that his companion was lying. After Kakashi started to fidget beneath his gaze, the Snake Sannin finally seemed mostly satisfied that he was telling the truth. "You once told me you could see where the divine was and use logic from there," the snake added skeptically.

"The other benefits of having a neutral body," Kakashi explained. It was rather easy for his body's senses to detect the divine, just in case Kakashi failed to realize that he wasn't seeing something. It was no more difficult for him to train his body to detect the supranatural than it was for anyone else to do the same. All he had to do was learn to pay attention to intuition and unexplained sensations, which was already a vital part of shinobi training, so such training did not even take extra time or effort on his part.

"Hm. I shall have many more questions at a later point," Orochimaru warned. His eyes were glittering and his writing hand was searching for a pen, so Kakashi already knew that. They turned back to the serpent. "So this means she's divine."

"Yes."

"Is that going to lead to any trouble?" Orochimaru's voice was hard. Kakashi rushed to deny this before any conflict could arise between them, or (worse) between Orochimaru and his mother.

"No, absolutely not!" Kakashi walked up to the tip of the stone serpent's nose and placed his hand on it. "There would never be any trouble. As long as I keep my darkness to myself and don't harm anyone, there's no reason for trouble. I'm insulted that you would need to ask, actually."

This last sentence was spoken, absurdly, with a tone of childlike wonder. Kakashi had intended to sound playfully insulted, but that was before he'd noticed that the stone was warm. He stared at his hand. _Um…_ He organized his thoughts so his soul speech would be very clear. _Hello. _

He didn't sense a response, but he had no reason to expect he could. If the soul that spoke was divine, could a demon hear the message? He didn't know. He hadn't ever met an angel, much less tried to communicate with one soul to soul.

_I'm different from other demons. I've lost my memory_, he explained. _I'm lost, and confused, and sane. Harmless. Love. _He tried to convey everything in his heart that was said to be heavenly, even if his actual heart could never be. _I desire good relations. _

The warmth beneath his hand pulsed noticeably. Kakashi gasped, and slowly he drew his hand back and looked at it in awe. "I think she's accepted me," he whispered to Orochimaru. _Wow. Accepted me, even though I'm a demon… _His chest filled with gratitude which threatened to leak out his eyes. _Thank you. _

Orochimaru eased. "Good. She'd better."

Kakashi's tail wagged even harder. _If you're responsible for his existence, or you know who is, thank you/them so much. I'm very scared of what could have happened if I didn't have him, if I was really all alone. I might have turned out like other demons. _The more he turned his mind away from the human world towards his demonic future, the less optimistic Kakashi felt about the fate of his demonic kin. His idea of what it meant to be like other demons was getting worse and worse. This was an expression of the sincerest gratitude towards Orochimaru.

"So, Mother," Orochimaru began. "I seem to have a cursed spirit following me and occasionally possessing my body without my consent. Do you have any idea what to do about this?"

Kakashi nudged his elbow and held up his own hand, pointing to the stone serpent's snout. Orochimaru followed Kakashi's example and placed his hand on her snout in the same way. As Kakashi had, he startled somewhat upon finding that the stone was warm. Kakashi was intrigued to see Orochimaru's features soften after this, and the snake lean forward and close his eyes. _I wish I could speak to her the way he can…_

The Snake Sannin sighed and leaned even further, appearing to relax into an invisible embrace. This brought bittersweet pangs to Kakashi's heart. _I wish he could have felt like that with his family._ _I wish _I _could have…_ Did he have the right to wish for such a thing, though? He'd actually known his mother, for however little time that had been, and he had some memories of her. That was more than Orochimaru said he had. _Gods, when was the last time I even thought of my mother? _The wolf ninja turned away from this adorable scene, feeling like an ungrateful bastard.

He only looked when he heard Orochimaru step away. The snake looked confused, and getting more so with every second. "That was…" He shook his head. "Thank you, but how is that supposed to help? What does it mean?" Peace and joy warred on his face with frustration and other more normal feelings.

Kakashi took his hand. _He had better recognize the value of what he has, or so help me I will shove it down his throat. _"What does what mean?"

Orochimaru blinked himself back to reality, and squeezed Kakashi's hand back. "All she did was offer reassurance and comfort. No useful information, no advice, nothing. What use am I supposed to make of that?"

Kakashi sighed. "You could interpret it as a message. If I consulted someone older and wiser who I trusted to know more about the situation, and they told me everything was going to be alright, I would trust their word. I would go on with renewed confidence. I would reassess my evaluation of the situation, thinking that their confidence could indicate that I have failed to accurately gauge the threat level. It _is_ advice and information, just in a different form."

Orochimaru huffed. "I prefer to receive my advice and information in a more straightforward fashion." He turned back to the stone serpent. "It's good that _you_ know how to interpret things beneath a distracting layer of cuddliness, though. So, then… She meant that we're going to figure out this mystery successfully so we shouldn't worry, and it's not as difficult or fearsome a task as it seems. Is that correct?"

"I would think so." Kakashi nodded. He turned back to the stone serpent and bowed politely. "Thank you for your guidance. This will be most helpful." He straightened and scratched behind one ear. "I'll do my best to keep him safe, too."

"Excuse him, he's half wolf," Orochimaru told her as they turned to leave. He pulled Kakashi closer by the arm. "If you say something like that ever again, I will bite you," the snake hissed.

Kakashi laughed. "You said it yourself. I'm a wolf; I have to protect anyone I care about, whether they need it or not. Think of this as a favor _you_ are doing for _me_, by allowing me to sate my inborn desires in a way that doesn't actually interfere with you."

"It's humiliating," the snake argued back. "That's interference enough." He no longer sounded like he had any real objection to allowing Kakashi to protect him, though.

Kakashi wondered what Orochimaru's mother thought of this as they finally exited the enormous room. _If she were a human mother, she'd probably be pinching cheeks and gushing about how cute we are and what a good boy I am,_ he decided. _Eh...better than being hated._

"There is one other thing I wanted," he told Orochimaru. "I was hoping that meeting her would be enough of a diversion to knock something loose and help me figure things out."

"Has it worked?"

"Well…" Kakashi assembled everything they had previously thought about the ghost, plus her advice, in his head. Something which had previously nagged at him began to nag at him much more sharply. He stopped. "Huh."

Orochimaru looked closely. Kakashi held his breath, waiting for the nagging feeling to become something tangible that he could do. _The ghost's appearance...those _eyes…

He looked up at Orochimaru. "Summon that snake you summoned before, when I knocked myself out."

Orochimaru did so. There was a puff of smoke, and the blue snake sat before them in the middle of the hallway. It looked from human to human and hissed, waving the end of its tail disapprovingly.

"I understand," Orochimaru told it. He turned to Kakashi. "What is he here for? Be quick about it."

"Look at his eyes." Kakashi followed his own advice. The pieces all fell into place as he saw the color in them. "Is that the same or a similar shade of green as the ghost's eyes?"

Orochimaru's eyes widened. "It is…"

"And don't some snakes have round pupils?" Kakashi had seen plenty of small forest snakes in his travels, so he already knew the answer.

"Yes." Orochimaru waved at the blue snake, and it vanished. "You think the ghost's eyes are snakelike."

"In which case -"

"It's following me around because it's like me," Orochimaru concluded. "_Shit._"

"No, that might be exactly what she was referring to." Everything else was falling into place for Kakashi as well. "I heard it using soul speech just before it materialized in front of you. The signal was as diffuse as its soul is, but I was able to tell it was some kind of positive feeling. Soul speech can't be used to fabricate things that aren't true. It is literally the expression of one's soul. It _likes_ you, and wants to be you, probably because you resemble its body. It doesn't intend to hurt you at all!"

"I'm sure that will be reassuring, once I figure out how there can be anyone else like me in the world," Orochimaru muttered. "All this time, and I _still_ haven't figured out why I'm half snake. What caused this? If it can happen to others, why don't I know anyone else in the current time who is like me? If it is established that snakelike children can be born to human parents at random, you'd think there would be more information on this phenomenon."

"It must be rare," Kakashi shrugged. "_Whiiiich_ is why we need to hurry up and save the ghost, so that he can recover enough to tell us more about this phenomenon. I _knew_ he was important!"

_All my intuitions are coming true! _The relief was amazing; Kakashi took a moment to savor it. _Shame I didn't have an intuition about the cause of his condition, though. _

Orochimaru opened his mouth. Kakashi repeated what he'd just thought before the snake could say anything. Orochimaru smirked and looked at Kakashi with admiration. "I'll show you to the library, then."

Kakashi remembered one thing he was still curious about. "What was this base built to study?"

Orochimaru grinned. "I wondered when you would ask that." He gestured Kakashi over to a table while he looked around the shelves. Just as Kakashi sat down, he recalled the shelf he was looking for and selected a book, which he handed to Kakashi. It was titled _Mysteries of the Inland Sea._

"This one is a bestseller around these parts," the Snake Sannin explained. "This base is surrounded by farmland, which is obviously located inland. The title is referring to a bay east of here, which is home to a number of unexplainable phenomena and things that leave overly large footprints in the sand at low tide. We're on the far side of a number of little towns bordering this mysterious bay, all of which have well-developed superstitions about the water. There is one regularly-occurring event in particular that I wanted to study, but if I had not been devoting most of my resources to more mainstream studies, I would have liked to station a few more people here to research _everything _year round." He sighed wistfully, his head and shoulders slumping. "And now that I have the time and attention, I don't have the people. Isn't that the way things go."

"What is the event, and what did you find out about it?" Kakashi's tail wagged in sympathy with Orochimaru's regret. It _was_ terrible to miss a mystery.

Orochimaru recovered enough to smile, just a little. "It's a tale of monsters," he began, sitting on the table next to Kakashi. This seemed to be the position they were using for discussing things in the library now. "Out just beyond the bay, there is a formation of rocks which fishing ships must be careful to avoid. It's nothing special. At least, it isn't for most of the year."

Kakashi turned to get a better view of the light in Orochimaru's eyes. They sparkled like some kind of yellow gem. The snake grinned back at Kakashi, and probably would have said something suggestive again if that wouldn't have interrupted his story. "However, on the spring and fall equinoxes, this formation becomes highly sinister, and fishers avoid leaving the bay entirely. They won't even enter the outer half of it. The submerged formation glows, lighting up the water as the sun rises and sets on that day. People who stay awake the night before, or the night after, report that the light would be very beautiful, if it wasn't constantly interrupted. A large shadow blocks much of the light, you see, as if something is swimming over the rocks. Nobody can see the light from above, and it would be ridiculous to suggest that such modest villages built something to reflect the light down, so the exact shape and dimensions of the shadow remain a mystery. People wouldn't even be able to see it moving like a living thing if it weren't for the brave and excited boys that climb the masts of the tallest ships every year to get a better look.

"You might think that it could be a small creature, scuttling just above the rocks and therefore appearing monstrous when it is not. If so, how would you explain the fact that no ship which tries to approach the rocks ever survives?" The snake's eyes were hypnotic, drawing Kakashi into the story. He leaned forward unconsciously, not knowing if he was looking at the glow in Orochimaru's eyes or the glow on the rocks. They both seemed real. "Brave kids have tried to get an even better view, in the past. At first, all goes well. They unfurl the sails, raise the anchor, guide it out into the open bay. Spectators watch from shore, holding their breath as lanterns flash onboard in celebration and cheering echoes over the water. But then… The lanterns stop flashing, and the cheering gets wilder, almost frenzied, hysterical. Nobody on shore can see what's happening yet, but soon even they begin to see the ship shudder, as if it's running aground. But the rock formation is nowhere near - the ship hasn't even left the bay yet. Fishing ships cross that exact patch of water on their way out of the bay at other times of the year, and have no problem. But at this time of year, the ship shudders and stops. It's not long before the first sound of cracking echoes over the water.

"At this point, the wisest of those aboard still have a chance of survival. Survivors have swum back to shore after leaping as far as they could off the rear of the ship and racing back to land as if Hell itself was after them. Perhaps it was. At any rate, the ship itself is doomed. Winds have been seen to change, and survivors report trying to turn the boat back towards shore, but it doesn't move. Nothing is wrong with the rudder; it just doesn't move, for reasons no one can explain.

"What happens next is so obvious as to be boring. The ship shudders violently, and the whole bay can hear it splitting. It sinks quickly, as do any people who only try to swim for their life now. It's too late - they missed their chance. One second they're swimming, and the next they drop through the water as if it was air, never to surface again. Everything's gone in a minute or two. In less than five or ten minutes total, the whole happy voyage has sailed to the bottom of the sea.

"As documented in this book, divers afterwards have found the remains of their ships broken into pieces so small, they hardly disturb the sea floor. They never find human remains. And that is why, if you roam through these little fishing villages around the time of the equinox, you will find fishermen happily letting themselves and their family starve for three days rather than go out into the deeper waters of the bay. They put up their boats the day before the equinox, and don't take them down for business until a full night has passed in darkness. The light from the rocks disappears in the first touch of daylight, and so does the shadow, but that doesn't mean the rocks stop shining or the beast stops swimming during the day. Nobody has ever been willing to test the hypothesis that it does.

"But, during the day, nobody climbs the masts of the tallest ships and looks at the rocks. There is nothing to see out there. _Absolutely no sign_ of a large living thing exists." As the last echoes of Orochimaru's voice faded into the air, Kakashi still saw it clearly - a broad horizon of ocean, searched by the most inquisitive of eyes, yet showing no unusual shadows beneath its sun-crested waves. The sun sparkled, little pinpricks of light daring one to explore further. Or maybe that wasn't sunlight, but something else yellow and daring. Kakashi was unable to figure out which before his ventures ended.

The vision of sun-crested waves wavered, but did not break up. Kakashi closed his eyes and returned to the rocks shining at night. He felt his head rock back and forth as Orochimaru pressed forward, and stabilize when Orochimaru reached around to grip the back of his head. Kakashi felt what it was like to be caught, no going forward or back. All he could do was wrap his arms around Orochimaru's waist and let the snake wedge his lips open. _Tastes musky. _He thought of complaining when Orochimaru's other arm gripped him around the waist and dragged him closer with enough force to press into his skin painfully, but decided against it. The snake seemed happy, and he was _fascinating_ when he was happy. Kakashi deadened his pain receptors and concentrated on the heartbeat, breathing, and muscle movement of his serpent. _Why does he always start shaking? _Kakashi remembered what it had felt like to be surrounded by fascinating signals he wanted to leave his body to devour, and suppressed the urge to shudder himself. _Poor guy. It must be painful. _He tightened his grip on Orochimaru's waist and hoped the snake would find what he was looking for. _For a cold-blooded creature, he's _very_ warm. _

A significant amount of time later, Orochimaru abruptly ended the kiss, pulling back from Kakashi like the wolf ninja was made of molten iron. But only a little, of course. His eyes were ablaze. "Is this what I have to do to interest you? Tell you a story?"

"If that story interests you, maybe. I like your eyes when you're interested in something." _Am I doing this right? That doesn't sound suggestive enough. How am I supposed to be responding? _

Orochimaru's gaze banished doubt from Kakashi's mind. The snake was licking at his left fang again. "Well, since _you_ did the courtesy of approaching _me…_" His breath shuddered at that. "I suppose that means you would be willing to go somewhere else?"

"Um…" _I don't know. We've never gone as far as actual mating before. _"Maybe?"

The snake pulled him closer. "Better experiment some more to be sure, then."

Kakashi tried to focus on Orochimaru's breath as the snake unzipped his vest. That task got very difficult as Orochimaru's hands worked their way down to bare skin. _Too rough. My lower back's ticklish. My heartbeat isn't any faster than normal. Damn... Like he said, there's no sign of it. _"No. No."

Orochimaru looked pained as Kakashi's hand on his chest pushed them apart. The wolf ninja wagged _Apology._ "Sorry. I _can_, but only sometimes. My body's pretty numb most of the time. I was fascinated, but _physically_… I'm getting no response. Maybe some other time."

"Not only do you not get excited by sight or smell, but you can't even get excited by _touch?_" A look of pity crept in alongside the anger in Orochimaru's eyes. "I thought at least you could get along with _yourself_."

Kakashi sighed. "You'd be surprised how much the mind involves itself in the body's affairs. Like I said, I can and I do, but only sometimes. Every few days or so. Even then, the signal's rather weak. I'll tell you next time I get a response."

"Never met someone with a libido that waxes and wanes on a scale of days," Orochimaru muttered angrily as he drew back.

"Or hours," Kakashi mentioned in an attempt to be helpful.

"Dammit, Puppy."

"Sorry, thought it might be relevant." Kakashi scratched his head. "So, which of these shelves have arcane rituals on them?"

"The shelf I got the book from covers the history and mythology of this region. Have fun with all of the others." The Snake Sannin got up and left the room before Kakashi had a chance to move.

His tail drooped, and he sighed. _I did like the kissing and the warmth, and I have been feeling rather cuddly today and yesterday. That's probably a sign that it's on the way in. But I'm still nervous, which might have an effect. But on the other hand, he seems to be in such pain… Eh, I'll figure it out tonight. That's plenty of hours for a wave or two to come in. _Kakashi picked up the book, which immediately drew his interest with its cover illustration of a monster with a three-split tail and huge fins on its shoulders. _Ooh, now this looks interesting! I'll, um, just keep it. Surely he can't object to me borrowing a single book. What kind of creatures could live -_

_No! Bad brain! Stop! We're supposed to be looking for curses and saving a ghost, not ogling well-drawn illustrations, _Kakashi sternly reminded himself. _Right. Occult rituals. This way. _After a good sigh, he finally, with great effort, managed to put the book in one of his pockets and get off the table. As he did so, he extended his senses, hoping the ghost wasn't feeling desperate. He found nothing, indicating Orochimaru was safe alone...for now.

.

**A/N: Milestone reached! First sexy scene ever written! How'd it turn out? This is the first time I've even tried, so it might be less than totally effective. Basically I tried to describe things the way I've read them described in other people's works of romance. By all means, tell me how well that worked below. **

**Notice: THERE WILL BE NO SEX SCENES IN ANY FANFIC OF MINE. This is because I have not the slightest clue how to write them! I can only write what I know, and I know nothing about that, so there will be no full-blown sex scenes written by me. If you read a sexy scene written by me where the characters make it as far as touching bare skin after removing an article of clothing, you can guarantee that scene will NOT develop into a full sex scene, and will instead be cut off as it is here. If two characters get together in my stories, the story will cut to a different scene as soon as the first mention of removing clothes is made. That is how I have decided it will work. **

**I just a few days ago finished reading a book titled _Ghost Ships_, which is a collection of eerie and possibly supernatural mysteries of the sea. There are no stories of supposed sea monsters in that book; I only mention it because it means the topic of maritime mysteries was on my mind at the time of writing the end of this chapter, so that's why the chapter ends with a story in a story. I think the story in a story turned out REALLY good. Please let me know if you agree or disagree and why!**


	11. Stare Into The Void

_Step one: Locate the books with arcane rituals in them. _This was easily done by applying a sorting algorithm to his demon senses before sweeping the library.

_Step two: Gather them. _Kakashi piled them on the table he and Orochimaru were no longer sitting on.

_Step three: Locate likely candidates. _Kakashi sighed. This was going to be the long part.

After looking through three books of rituals that could not possibly be applied to humans, Kakashi was struck by a very demoralizing thought. _This would be so much easier with shadow clones. _Alas, by using his darkness on a more regular basis, he was not making it easy to build up the chakra required for even one. Kakashi checked to see how much chakra he had.

_What the hell? _He was stunned to see how little chakra he had. He'd taken the form of a giant wolf a couple weeks ago to scare off some bandits, but that was the most recent time he'd extended darkness around his body like that. Two weeks should have been more than enough time to recover enough chakra for a bunch of clones. Instead, Kakashi guessed he would have to make do with no more than two.

He contemplated this curious phenomenon. _Maybe my rate of chakra production is slowing down. Since I'm not withholding it that much, my darkness might be accidentally getting out of hand and filling more space in my cells, even if I still have decent control over it. _That seemed to be the most likely option, as he hadn't been able to know what his darkness was doing before he released his senses and everything else. Maybe just using it enhanced its chakra-destroying qualities. Kakashi decided it was either that, something else caused by the release of his darkness, or something completely unexpected and entirely unpredictable. In short, nothing worth worrying about.

Kakashi readied himself for the eerie feeling of splitting off a portion of his soul into a shadow clone. Just before he would have done so, another epiphany struck him. _Wait, why do I need to make a shadow clone? All that's going to happen is that my soul will split and inhabit a separate body, constructed from chakra. But if my darkness has material properties, then what do I need a body for? My soul can be its own body. _He extended a hand. From it poured a ball of darkness. Kakashi made it less dense, and that small ball of darkness expanded to the size of an adult human. It changed appearance, and bam. A clone of Kakashi was standing before him. The clone checked out its arms and legs, to confirm what they'd suspected.

"It works!" Kakashi leaned back against the table and stared up at the ceiling. "I think I will call you… a Dark Clone. Not original, I know, but it sounds good."

The clone glared at him, before reaching for a book. Kakashi made four more (_I have a lot of darkness - this is barely making any impact. Why do I have so much darkness?_) and gave each a pile of books to look through. After fifteen minutes, they began to do the natural thing and talk with each other about the rituals they were looking at, making up stories and conjectures about why and how they existed. One clone refused to participate in this talk, as he was getting "bored." Kakashi raised an eyebrow at him. _You think anyone is falling for that? _But he gave that clone the book on local mysteries anyway, and assigned that one to exploring the shelves of local lore.

Clones 1, 3 and 4 looked up from their books and shot him with envious glares. Kakashi explained, "Well, only one of you could have the privilege, seeing as there is only one book."

Clone 2 looked up. "Privilege? Speak for yourself." He turned the book around so everyone could see the jagged 4-pointed star shape he was studying. "The potential applications of this are _very cool._"

The rest of them and Kakashi's main body turned back to their books and began a comparison. Clone 1 held up a teleportation ritual. "It moves things between different locations where this charm is placed, like waystations. Perhaps our ghost was snatched in the middle."

Clone 2 described his as, "Remote viewing ritual. You sit in the middle of this star so that you are perfectly aligned with the four cardinal directions, and then you let yourself wander. Literally. Things get blurry as you try to look farther from yourself, but it's ideal for remotely viewing anything within a 50 meter radius. The catch is, you don't get to change your position, so you can't look at anything from multiple angles. It's just like lifting your sitting body and moving it back and forth, up and down, and side to side, with no ability to rotate or tilt. A very likely candidate."

Clone 4 held up his. "Gives powers beyond human imagination. That's funny - we had no trouble imagining moving through walls before. Someone could have gotten a glitchy version of that power; they walked through a wall but their body didn't, or some such."

Kakashi nodded. "That's nice, but you're Clone 4. Let's do this in numerical order."

Clone 4 put down his book in stunned disbelief. "How can I be Clone 4? I thought I was Clone 3. He's sitting behind everyone - he should be Clone 4!"

"I'm the one making this judgment, and from my point of view I see him between you and Clone 2," Kakashi declared. "If you wanted distance to be a factor, you shouldn't have sat in a small arc. You're number 4."

Clone 4 crossed his arms and looked annoyed. Clone 3, who _was_ sitting behind the rest, interrupted to say, "No, no. It's fine. I don't mind the extra minute or two he gave me to look for an interesting ritual, really."

Every other version of Kakashi turned to look at him. "That's not the point," Clone 1 insisted. "If the point was to look for the most likely candidates, we could sit in silence."

Kakashi nodded in agreement. "What do you think we are, a group of council members?"

Clone 4 added, "It's bad enough I'm not in the position I thought I was. Let's just move on and get to the fun part, which is the part where we take the hand we were given, no matter what it is, and make do. You don't get to ask for a new hand in cards."

Clone 2 looked around. "What kind of card game is this?"

Kakashi scratched his chin. "How about a storytelling one? Yours sounds like it was invented by the desperate defenders of a fort who saw their chance to turn the tide of battle, if only they could see beyond their own walls. That sort of thing."

"Okay, I surrender," Clone 3 said while lowering his head and raising his hands. "I capitulate, and all that." He held up a circle inside another circle, with writing between the two circles. "A storage ritual. Almost identical to a storage seal, except for… Nothing. It's like a giant storage seal. Presumably it could be used to store storage seals and other jutsus, which would break a regular storage seal, but aside from that it's just a large seal. It might have more space. That's it."

Kakashi's eyes widened. "Are you insane? That is the best ritual of all of us. There are so many ways it can be taken." He thought for a second. "How does it work? Is that specified?"

Clone 3 shrugged. "I actually do not see any information regarding how it works, but I can look again." He started to flip back and forth around the ritual's description.

"Oh, oh," Clone 4 piped up. "I know. It works by opening a portal to another dimension! Which is full of… Nothing! Empty space, a lot like the Kamui dimension now that I think of it."

"Not like the Kamui dimension," Clone 2 argued. "Outer space itself. What better place to store your junk than somewhere that will freeze it solid, protect it from bacteria and viruses, and where nobody can steal it from you?"

"I disagree," Clone 1 disagreed. "This ritual clearly hides its contents on a different layer of reality, Not a different place, but a different part of reality."

"Shrinks it down to the subatomic level," added Clone 2.

"Turns it into pure energy, which can only be turned back to matter if the original user remembers what its properties were so he can give it form from his mind," Clone 4 suggested.

"Alternate universe," Kakashi declared. "That has to be it. Store your junk in a different universe."

"Send it back to hell," Clone 3 said as he placed a bookmark, before snapping the book shut. "No, that's not the answer. I'm playing the game. There was no answer given in the book."

"What's the point of that? Whoever wrote that book is such a downer," Clone 5 complained from over by the shelves.

"Out of order! Go back to your lore," Kakashi ordered. He turned back to the other 4 clones. "That said, I agree with him. Who's next?"

"I nominate my teleportation ritual!" said Clone 1.

"Hey, wait, you made up a story about who invented his ritual and why," Clone 3 pointed out while gesturing at Clone 2. "What about the purpose and creation of mine?"

"A storage ritual? Its purpose is obvious, and anyone could have created it," said Clone 4.

"Fair point. So what was yours again?"

"Moves items or people placed inside its boundaries from one station to another," Clone 1 described. "It's a permanent fixture, which most rituals aren't, and there has to be more than one for it to work. No method specified as to how it moves things. I'm getting the feeling that most of these rituals were invented by people who didn't care about how they worked, as long as they did."

"How _do_ arcane rituals work? We've never learned about that." Clone 4 stared off into space, more absorbed in what he'd just thought of than the specifics of a single ritual.

Because he was a clone, every other version of Kakashi shared the same priorities. Clone 1 gave permission to ignore his ritual for now while they speculated about arcane rituals in general. "Where do they come from?" was what he wanted to know.

"So far, we only know of one ritual that works independently of chakra, and that was the Jashinist ritual that guy used to kill Asuma," Kakashi recalled. "Presumably, he learned of that ritual through his god. Then again it _is_ an explicitly divine ritual, which these are not. Where do rituals come from when they aren't tied to specific gods?"

"In order to answer that, we would need to know how they work," Clone 2 muttered. "Do they work based on their shape? If so, someone could have made a mistake when drawing a regular seal and accidentally drew a shape that worked as an arcane ritual. Are they given power by the people who use them? If it's that, then they could have been ordinary symbols used by cultists, or somebody, who gave them power through repeated use in symbolic rituals. Maybe they have a science to them, like natural phenomena, or maybe they don't, so only highly skilled outcasts from reality could even know they existed. Who knows?"

"You guys are missing the most important part," Clone 4 whispered. "The important part is where did they _go?_ Forms of power don't just vanish into obscurity for no reason. What happened to the people that used them?"

Clone 3 looked down at his book. "The use of chakra has advanced over the centuries, with new and more usable seals developed all the time. Why go through specialized learning to use rituals in addition to chakra, when you could just learn about chakra and develop a seal to do the same thing?"

Kakashi opened his book and started flipping through it quickly. "Hold on. Everyone pause." After several minutes, he nodded. "Looking through the requirements of these rituals, I see that they do take mastery to learn. Chakra-based techniques are designed for military use, and time spent learning rituals is time not spent learning ninjutsu. I see societies that split their resources falling to more dangerous ones that didn't."

All of the clones fell silent. What their discussion was touching upon was history that nobody knew. Before warring clans, each specializing in distinctive styles of jutsu, what was there? The only history that stretched back that far was the clans' own histories, which were heavily biased, known to be rewritten several times each, and never specified anything about the past beyond the clans' own founders and whatever little was necessary to know about their lives. The amount of surviving knowledge in the world about a time before ninjutsu mastery was close to zero. Those times had been forever destroyed by the very techniques they had given rise to.

"Is it possible…" Kakashi began hesitantly, in a hushed whisper, "that societies were different before advanced jutsu? What could they have looked like? How could they have lived? Was there less war, or less dangerous war? Could we live like that again, if only…" _If only we knew how to live any other way. If only the records that could have told us weren't gone. If only there was such a thing as a life besides the ninja life. If there was more than one way of life, more than one culture… Could we advance? Change? If only..._

"I wish we remembered," Clone 2 whispered. "We must have been there."

Every other version of Kakashi gasped at that. Kakashi's eyes began to well up with tears. _I want so much to be able to move into the future, to reinvent myself and become better, _more_ than any other demon has been able to… But what have I lost? _He released darkness from his hands and looked at it. It absorbed all light, showing no flaws or markings of any kind on the surface it didn't have. Kakashi was suddenly very, very aware of the empty space around him and the blankness on his soul. _Where did I come unmoored from? Who was I? Who am I? What did I forget? Did I forget someone like Orochimaru? _He shuddered, and tears fell down his cheeks and soaked into his mask. He considered the whole world, and the tears turned into a waterfall as a dam burst inside. _I'm not alone. Everyone in the whole world is the same. We're all drifting on an open ocean, with no connection to land. Where did we come from and where are we going? _Kakashi wrapped his arms around himself. Everything felt very, very lonely.

_I'm lost._ He whimpered. _If only there was something, _anything_, to hold and keep… _

He coughed. The tears stopped for the briefest of moments, and Kakashi's eyes flew open. _To keep. _He stared at Clone 3.

Clone 3 met his gaze, but didn't understand. Kakashi held out his hand for the book. _You don't need to understand. _Clone 3 handed it over, and Kakashi opened it to the bookmarked page. Their little circle stayed silent, the clones watching him as he absorbed every word about the storage ritual. Some took a few more seconds than others to realize what Kakashi's main body had realized first, but by the time he looked up, they all understood.

"You were right. It was the best," Clone 3 realized.

Kakashi nodded. "You all stay here, help Clone 5 look for mysteries. It's the _mysteries_ that we need to know. We've had too narrow a focus - how could I have been so stupid? You -" he held the book out to Clone 3 "- keep it and guard it. It's a book; it won't grow legs and run off. I have someone I need to talk to."

Clone 3 took the book and simply pressed it into his chest, where the darkness he was made of absorbed it and held it. Kakashi stood. "I may have...to rethink my policy on looking into the past," he murmured as an afterthought. The clones looked at each other as he left.

.

Kakashi eased the door shut behind him. The muffled sound of its closing echoed throughout the large room. The torches still flickered, highlighting the stone serpent's eyes in that same strange way. Kakashi fought to repress further tears. _And she? Where does she come from? _He couldn't believe he'd only just now realized the implications of not having a past. He had no history of his own. Shouldn't he have wondered what it would be like to have one? _I never even realized having a past was possible. It was the only way of life I knew. _Kakashi shivered more. He couldn't seem to stop himself from considering further implications of not having knowledge of history, and what he was imagining was terrifying.

He walked silently up to the stone serpent, until he stood directly before her. Kakashi's heart began to beat faster. Had she existed more than a thousand years ago, before humans developed chakra techniques sophisticated enough to overturn their way of life? What had she seen? Kakashi began to imagine people dressed in all kinds of strange fabrics, living in oddly shaped buildings and walking to temples that housed different gods. The thought that he might have seen all of that and forgotten made his heart ache.

Kakashi placed both his hands on her snout and leaned forward to rest his forehead against the tip of her nose. For a minute he rested there, trying to figure out where to begin. After this minute had passed, he decided he should be courteous and explain himself before anything else. "Who was I?" he asked her. "I was just now discussing history with my clones, and it sunk in that I don't have one. How much of my existence is missing? How long have I existed at all? I…" He sniffled. "I don't remember anything from how the world was before. We were looking at rituals, and I realized I don't know where they came from, or what kind of people used them. They must have come before ninjutsu. Gods, it's impossible. The idea of anything before shinobi, before ninjutsu, is impossible to imagine. I can't imagine living any other way than we live now."

He took a few seconds' break to sob. "It got me thinking about the state of the world, about what Obito and Madara thought. They thought the world was hopeless. I've always thought they were looking too far into the future, but what if they were looking into the past and seeing only a void? I…" His hands clenched. "I don't want a void. What if my memory disappears again? Did I forget someone like Orochimaru? Will I forget him?" Kakashi pressed his forehead into the comforting warm stone. "I don't know where I've been, or where I am. What happened? Why did everything disappear?" He sobbed a couple more times. "What is missing? And can I live on what's left?"

Kakashi's shuddering grew more pronounced. It was _terrifying. _The future would be whatever it was, and he would probably be fine, but the past was _gone_, _disappeared _right from under his feet, and there was nothing he could do to get it back. _I could look, but I would see it all from the perspective of a stranger. If I look and I see myself, would I even recognize me? _And, scariest of all… _What stole it from me? _Kakashi shivered in fear at the thought that he might lose what little he could keep of Orochimaru, and there would be absolutely nothing he could do. _My soul could just be smoothed over, with not even the traces of a mark, as if I had never lived at all. _And whoever he became after _that_ would never know that this version of him had ever existed, just like he had no memory of whoever he had been previously. Visions flared into existence, visions of all kinds of different versions of himself that might have existed, that no longer existed anywhere in anyone's memory. _How many times have I died?! _Kakashi was starting to hyperventilate.

Abruptly, Kakashi's forehead became cool, and he was tilting backward. He opened his eyes to struggle against his captor, and found himself eye to eye with Orochimaru. Kakashi could feel his pupils widening to take in more of the snake's golden eyes. He might lose those eyes at any time. The sight of them grew blurry.

"Puppy?" Orochimaru's hand was warm on his cheek. Kakashi reached up to grab it and hold on for dear life. "Puppy?" He sounded so worried.

Kakashi blinked furiously in an attempt to clear his eyes. "What was there before there was jutsu, Orochimaru?"

"Hm?" The snake was silenced. "Ah… Before jutsu?" He sounded as if he'd been asked about something nonexistent, like the conservation status of fairies. Kakashi suppressed a whimper.

"I was looking at rituals," he explained, "and I started to wonder where they came from. What kind of people used storage rituals? It must have been before the study of chakra was advanced enough for storage seals. What did that world look like? How did they live?"

Orochimaru was still silent, so Kakashi went on. "This world doesn't remember its history, and neither do I. I must have been around to see it, but all of that's gone. How can I even guess that this is the first time I've lost my memory?" He stopped there, lest he overwhelm his dearest companion again with his fear. _What am I even afraid of? _Kakashi stopped shaking, stopped everything. His eyes bulged. All the pieces slid into place. _I know what kind of fear this is. It's basic fear. My helplessness, turned outwards. I can't do anything to stop my memories from being stolen. I'm truly, from the core of my being, _scared. It was very nearly too much for him to take. He was starting to feel lightheaded. _Do ordinary people feel like this regularly? _His estimation of what humans were capable of shot up many notches.

Orochimaru shook him back and forth. "Well, what do you want to do about it?"

Kakashi remembered. Orochimaru only wanted to be told about things that mattered and could be fixed. The overwhelming fear began to abate. _Solutions. Power. I'm saved! _The relief of being saved was nearly as overwhelming as the dangers he had needed to be saved from. Kakashi embraced his snake with overflowing gratitude. "Thank you!" he whispered.

Orochimaru slowly embraced him back. "Remember what I said, Puppy," he advised. His voice was soft, soothing, and sure. Kakashi felt safer already. "Illusions. As people grow older, they think they have control. Think about that. Ignore your helplessness. Hide from it."

"Okay." Kakashi squeezed him tighter. "Solutions. What can I do?" He took a deep breath and stepped back from Orochimaru. "I actually came in here with an answer to that."

"Then why…?" Orochimaru's eyes flicked sideways, to the stone serpent.

"The sheer fact that we've lost our grounding and are floating aimlessly with no idea of what is even possible was too terrifying, even if I did have an idea," Kakashi explained with a shaky voice. "Had it ever occurred to you that a time before ninjutsu existed?"

Orochimaru's eyes flashed with anger as he defended himself from the feeling of being shaken and disturbed. "I had not. But now that you say it, it sounds obvious. Of course there must have been such a time."

Kakashi nodded. "The bad news...will be ignored in accordance with your wisdom." His heart grew warm with increased love for this beautiful snake. "The good news is, I found a storage ritual."

Orochimaru's anger eased. "There might be something left."

Kakashi's eyes sparked with wild, slightly hysterical excitement. "Maybe, just maybe, there could be something in there to tell us how people lived before shinobi existed. Without that knowledge, it will take centuries to accumulate enough history to be able to change how we live. Naruto's hopes for the world are good things, but without inspiration, they would never work."

Orochimaru already looked inspired. "There could even be something that I can use to learn how jutsu evolved." _Translation: I could find God's birth certificate._ Kakashi grinned beneath his mask.

"I came to your mother because she must be old enough to remember," he added. "I can almost see it - people in strange clothes going to worship deities completely foreign to those we have now. A world that operated by different rules, different laws of nature entirely. Can you imagine it? Different religions?"

Orochimaru chuckled. "They might even have had different words back then, and written their kanji with different strokes or in a different order or something crazy like that."

"Maybe -" Kakashi bit down on his words. "Ah. I think we're starting to get ahead of ourselves. Maybe we should speculate later."

"Show the way," Orochimaru offered. Kakashi agreed, and led them both back to the library very quickly.

Even before he opened the door, they both could hear the clones engaged in vicious debate. "Dark clones," Kakashi explained. "Inspiration personified."

Orochimaru opened his mouth, but then they heard one of the clones yell, "No way!"

Kakashi silently opened the door a crack, allowing them both to hear everything without muffling. "It might really work," a clone replied.

"I know we're looking for mysteries, but there is no way such a superstition has any backing to it," a clone argued. It might have been the first one. "That would overturn life as we know it."

"It sounds awesome, though!" another interjected. "If we could find actual honest to goodness _magic_ out here, it might join chakra as a major source of power."

"Civil war," the skeptical clone shot back. "Remember what he thought of? The shinobi world's complicated enough, without trying to add yet more ways for people to accumulate power to the mix. People would start getting torn between the two ways, starting wars, upsetting political balances…"

"Whoa, whoah, woah," yet another clone interrupted. "You guys are thinking too far ahead. We don't even know what the hell this means. It could be something completely different, like a portal to another universe or something."

"That would also be very awesome!" The excited clone appeared to have picked up the habit of using "awesome" too readily to express his excitement. Kakashi rolled his eyes. _ It's time to nip this in the bud. __I'll just absorb whatever they've been thinking of when I take them back anyway. _

"Hello!" he said with a wave as he pushed the door fully open. "What'd we miss?"

One of the clones held up _Mysteries of the Inland Sea. _"Some of the things described in here sound too familiar. This merits further investigation."

Orochimaru looked around. "You will know what they know once you get them back, like shadow clones, right?"

Kakashi nodded. "All right, three of you come back. I want whichever three are the most knowledgeable about whatever you were just arguing over. Two of you can stay and keep looking for information."

One clone whose tail was wagging in a number of positive ways, came over. This clone was followed by one whose tail was wagging a mixture of positivity and aggression or dominance. _Must be the Devil's Advocate I heard. _The clone with the book handed it to another, before coming over as well. Kakashi held out his hand, and all three turned into the darkness they were made of. They gave up their human shapes, becoming large floating oil slicks, and oozed onto Kakashi's arm. Kakashi felt a noticeable sense of relief and joy at uniting with these separate parts of himself, as well as whatever feelings they had been feeling just before. He started giggling uncontrollably.

Orochimaru looked at the remaining two. "Which one of you has the storage ritual?"

The clone who wasn't holding the book reached inside his chest and brought out the ritual tome, handing it to Orochimaru. Orochimaru opened it to the bookmark and began to read. "Ah, yes. A way of writing ever so slightly different from the way we say things nowadays." He looked up at Kakashi. "I've always enjoyed comparing this old script to more modern phrasings. I can't wait to see what else could have existed even further back in the past."

"Um…" The clone with the book held back, but his frantically wagging tail betrayed his secret excitement. "Do we have to stay? Can we be there? It might require more than two people."

"It says only two are needed, but alright, if you insist." Orochimaru looked at Kakashi's main body. "What do you think, Puppy?"

Kakashi blinked. "Huh? I'm sure whatever you think is fine." _That does sound much too familiar…_

Orochimaru took his hand and physically pulled Kakashi off balance. "I think I know a room. Let's get this done quickly." His eyes glittered, and he hadn't stopped smiling since he received the ritual. His smile displayed his fangs to their fullest effect. It looked like he was on the hunt. This smile frightened everyone else who had ever seen it, but because Kakashi was Kakashi, his tail started to wag instead.

"Yes, alright. Let's go." _I'll look for the ruins of ancient civilizations some other time. _

.

**A/N: GYAAAAAAAAAAAA! **

**It is a common piece of wisdom that one should learn through their writing. Ordinarily, this wisdom means one should learn things about their characters or world, or at least that's how I've always interpreted it. This is the first time I've ever learned something about the real world through my writing. I had never actually thought through the repercussions of a world where there is only one culture and only a few centuries of history. Writing the first part of this chapter greatly expanded my understanding of the value of history and how beautiful our world really is, that we can trace everything so far back and see how it all grew and changed together. The world is really huge and beautiful and _alive_, with so many ideas in it it's almost bursting. I felt so grateful for this thing that I've always taken for granted. **

**Of course, my understanding was only greatly enhanced for about an hour or so, hence the agonized wailing at the beginning of this note. I'm seriously starting to wonder if I'm cursed. Somehow, I can never get them back, these great feelings and understandings that I find in my writing. They disappear so quickly, and when I come back and read what I wrote, I can't get them back. I can never feel or see the world the same as I do just after writing these parts. I'll leave it in, because I remember it being so great, but I have no idea what I was trying to communicate and I want to know what it was. It's like I'm cursed with Aesop Amnesia, only I have to be aware of it, and retain some dim awareness that it was so great, so aren't I missing out for not being able to remember or recreate it? Excuse me while I bang my head against the wall and glare enviously at Kakashi. **

**BTW, _nothing_ in this chapter was planned beforehand. The impact of having no history isn't the only thing I knew nothing about before writing it. I had some generalized ideas for some really exotic adventures they might go on some point in the far future, but it looks like those ideas are going to become way more specific, way faster than I'd intended. Maybe. *sigh* Writing this story feels like dredging up stuff from really far beneath my levels of awareness, so I end up accidentally touching on existential questions and mysteries that extend into the philosophical. The trouble with that is, I have to find a way to talk about things I didn't know before, and that's hard. It's way easier to write my other fic, New Life, where at least I'm dealing with parts of myself that I know about.**

**Next chapter's going to be really important, with critical plot events happening in it. Prepare for a long note on that as well. **


	12. Search The Void

All 3 versions of Kakashi were wagging their tails excitedly and looking around as Orochimaru closed the door of the training room. He snickered at this sight. "Ah, the joys of pet ownership."

Kakashi laughed at his joke. "Mah, I doubt you would like the rest. I've only ever met trained nindogs and wolves, but even I know it's a lot of work. The pups are enough of a hassle when the whole pack is around to look after them."

"Naturally." The snake strode to the center of the room, which the two clones had already cleared of training props. "Good - a ritual of this design would need just about this amount of space. Let's see, does this text have a list of recommended materials…"

Kakashi kept one ear on what the snake was saying, and devoted the other to conversing quietly with his clones. "Did any one of you mention a plan, or think of one as we were walking down here?" he whispered.

Newly-designated Clone 1 whispered, "A plan for which thing?"

Kakashi's tail wagged _Anxious_. "The ship, of course. It's by far the most important thing I have ever heard of, _ever_. What else?"

"Just checking." Clone 1 nodded. "Well, obviously, the first step would be to station somebody or something in one of these towns to keep watch. The book said they come very rarely, and we'd blow up our own heads if we missed the next one."

"Wait, wait." Clone 2 shook his head. "Yes to the lookout, of course we need one, but what about afterwards? Depending on what happens now, we could find ourselves very preoccupied."

Kakashi nodded. "If one doesn't arrive very soon, we'll have to figure out how to bring it up. I'm already planning to go after one of the other mysteries; it's hard to imagine Orochimaru would be as interested in the ships as I am. Though I have to admit, my instincts are thirsting to go after these mystery ships right _now._ I can hardly restrain -"

"Come on, Puppy." Orochimaru whistled. "In the absence of a recommended materials list, I am forced to go with the classics: blood. The inner and outer circles must be drawn simultaneously and differently, it says."

"And the writing?" Kakashi obliged, standing where Orochimaru directed him to stand.

Orochimaru waved the clones over, and began to speak with them. They left the room in a great hurry. _Probably gathering other materials, _Kakashi guessed. _Who knows what kind of herbs and things might be needed. I doubt chakra ink could be used at all here. _

"Excellent. Now, then." Orochimaru was grinning in that same predatory way. This was _his_ domain, and only fools would question him here. "You will make the inner circle by drawing around yourself, and I will make the outer. We must be careful to complete them both at the same rate, finishing at the same time. You draw counter-clockwise, and I will go clockwise."

"That's it?" _That should be easy to handle. The trickiest part would be drawing at the same rate, and how long have I known him for? _

"Yes." Orochimaru's grin faded, but he did not look frustrated or angry. His eyes continued to shine. Kakashi guessed that Orochimaru was actually having fun contemplating some obstacle, turning over possible solutions to it in his mind. "Next would be the writing, which will be the most difficult part. All the better." A smug smile returned to his face. _Yep, he's enjoying this. _

Kakashi made a dark blade and sliced his fingertips open, then Orochimaru's. They knelt on the ground across from each other. Orochimaru counted, "3, 2, 1, start!" He and Kakashi put their sliced fingers to the ground and began to move. Kakashi drew as much as he could from moving his arm and staying still, gauging Orochimaru's speed before he began to rotate. _If he keeps the same speed… _By the time Kakashi was done thinking that, they faced each other briefly at the halfway mark. Orochimaru chuckled pleasantly. They completed their two circles simultaneously.

Kakashi's body registered an unmistakable sense of significance as they did so. _I _really _need to figure out how these rituals work. If just completing the circles did something, that narrows the possibilities to the shape, the value we've given this ritual, or some aspect of our performance. All these theatrics might be just that - theater. Mah, all these mysteries are giving me so much to think about. I see why he likes them so much. _Kakashi stood up quickly to avoid smudging the circles with his wagging tail.

Orochimaru sighed. "Alright, while your clones gather everything else, I'll use that time to figure out -"

The door shot aside, but was stopped at the last moment before it could make a loud noise banging against the wall. Its hinges registered a complaint. "All right!" yelped Clone 1. He and Clone 2 flew through the air, carefully not interrupting the circles. They landed next to Orochimaru and placed a bunch of jars of plant specimens on the ground around his feet. "This is everything!"

Orochimaru huffed. "Well then… You all will just have to wait while I take a minute or two to think of how to complete the writing."

The clones sighed, but spread to either side and looked at the circles. "Something already feels different," Clone 2 remarked.

Kakashi nodded. "I noticed. If any of you can come up with options beyond the shape, the meaning, or our performance, it would be appreciated."

Clone 1 picked up a jar. "This plant looks very strange."

Kakashi leaned over to get a better look, and hesitated. _What the…_ He realized at that moment that some signal was telling him he should not leave the circles. "I'm getting a mysterious signal telling me not to move. I'm afraid you'll have to float it over."

Orochimaru's eyes widened. "Ah, that makes sense. I was wondering what the patches of script on the sides of the circle meant." He beckoned Clone 1 back to his side, and asked the clone where he'd put four different kinds of plant.

Clone 1 found them easily enough. "What is the purpose of these?" he asked as he handed them over.

"Stability and protection," Orochimaru answered. "This ritual is very interesting. Any novice can tell from looking that whatever's meant to happen will happen at the center of the inner circle, but now it seems as if there is also supposed to be someone in the inner circle as the ritual is performed. That's very unusual. At least it indicates that, with proper precautions, the effect of the ritual isn't supposed to be terribly dangerous."

Kakashi looked all around. "Is that what the writing's for, then? Is it all for the protection of whoever stands inside?"

"No. Most of it runs directly counter to what I'm doing with these plants." Orochimaru muttered as he set up the second of the bunches, "Splitting. Separation. Things like that. It's frustrating. I can't tell _what_ is supposed to be split. It's completely without subject. I believe…" He finished what he was doing and looked up at Kakashi. "I believe this particular text was written for an audience that was expected to already know the relevant details. That's why each entry is little more than a giant diagram, with a basic overview of what the ritual is supposed to accomplish in case you forgot or didn't know what shape went with which purpose. It's filled to the brim with presumptions, and that _pisses me off. _If you're going to create a reference text, why create one that has to be consulted along with other reference texts? Just put everything in, unless you're _trying_ to restrict access to the ritual, for God's sake."

Kakashi looked at Clone 2. Clone 2 went over to the book, spread darkness over its pages to copy its text, then stepped back and consulted the text as it floated in mid-air. "It _is_ a thin book," Clone 2 murmured thoughtfully. "Maybe it was trying to restrict access."

Orochimaru sighed. "Can't figure out what the stability text is supposed to be written in. We're going to have to use blood again. Should it be yours or mine?"

"Let's see." Kakashi bent down and hovered his fingers over the area between the two circles, next to the bunches of herbs fixed to the inner circle. He was suddenly reminded of a phrase that he'd never heard, but which sounded like something he would have heard, if he'd been in the place where it was said. _Reminded? I've never heard it before - how can I be reminded? _It felt like a reminder anyway, regardless of logic. He shrugged. _No matter. Wherever it came from, "picking yourself up by the bootstraps" is nonsensical and in blatant defiance of physics. It must have been created to convey how foolish or silly an idea was. At least, it is if bootstraps are similar to sandal straps. That interpretation doesn't feel wrong, so it must be close. _

"This is reminding me of the hilarious idea of picking oneself up by one's own footwear," Kakashi said as he straightened up. "No, I have never heard such an idea before. Don't ask. Anyway, that indicates it has to be your blood, not mine."

Orochimaru did not move or speak in response to that. Kakashi bent down to see if his companion was alright. He saw Orochimaru's eyes darting from side to side, accompanied by a steadily growing aura of dread.

"So…" Orochimaru finally whispered. It sounded like he was whispering to himself; he didn't appear to be aware of Kakashi. "If the stability text is meant to support you, then you're its subject. If that's true of the rest of the writing as well…" His hands tightened into fists as he looked up. His eyes glowed sharply, like light shining off the ends of swords. "It's a damn good thing I asked you to be in the center and not me," he joked bitterly.

Kakashi glared back and nodded vigorously. "It is." He gestured for Clone 1. Clone 1 hesitated, then turned back into inky darkness, flowing over and into Kakashi's body. Kakashi then held out his hand to Orochimaru. "You saw what happened to those mice. I would not be physically intact if I did not always use my darkness to hold myself together. My soul and body can both separate as much as they want, and I would be fine." _Except for the neck. If the mind is separated from the heart, i.e. decapitated, I would not be able to return to the body for some inane reason. But there's no reason to worry him with that. _"And I have the advantage, because I'm a demon. The ritual is supposed to be used by ordinary humans who cannot do those things. So get your wits together, stop worrying about me, and finish it already. I'm the one type of being in all of reality with the least reason to fear separation." He gave Orochimaru an encouraging smile.

Orochimaru looked confused. He tilted his head at Kakashi. "When _am_ I supposed to worry about you? It's a very new practice to me."

"Um…" Kakashi scratched his head. _He's actually trying to worry about me, just to be a better friend? Wow… _Kakashi really hoped his body would be in the mood for mating later. "Well, just follow my lead," he answered. "If I seem concerned about something, you can be concerned as well. This ties in with what we've discussed about comfort - comfort is given to make a friend less concerned when you are worrying about them."

Orochimaru looked thoughtful. Kakashi's tail wagged _Sad._ _Why do I have to give him elementary lessons in how people relate to others? What happened? _

The snake returned to smiling in that predatory way. "If you are the subject of all of the text, that means it all needs to be in my blood. I'm going to need a lot of food to help me recover."

Kakashi wagged _Togetherness. _"Of course! Just tell me what you'd like when we're done, and I'll catch it for you." _We're starting to sound like we have a real pack! _

Orochimaru gestured at his tail. "I haven't seen that one before."

"It means bonding," Kakashi clarified. "I feel very close to you right now. We're starting to sound like actual packmates."

"I hope that means your mind will be on board later," Orochimaru said through a lecherous grin. Kakashi wagged his tail harder. _We even think together! _

Orochimaru lowered his head and began muttering to himself as he held the book upside-down in one hand and traced the writing with his other hand. The stability writing was very dense, Kakashi noticed. When those two rectangular blocks of script were completed, Kakashi could feel his feet become rooted to the faint glowing platforms of light he could see beneath them. It was not invisible to his demon senses, so the light could not be of divine origin. _Light is energy, so it must be drawing power from somewhere. Is it drawing power from our blood? _Kakashi looked at his clone and silently communicated: _The power of a ritual may not come from either of the options we came up with earlier, but from the materials used_. Privately, he thought _Why didn't I think of that when Orochimaru kept asking about materials as if the question was important?_

Orochimaru then started on the separation writing, which was much less dense and easier to complete. Despite everything he had said, Kakashi felt a growing sense of apprehension as Orochimaru crossed from one side of the circle to the other. Logic didn't hold a candle to instinct, and he quite liked his body's instincts. He carefully refrained from suppressing the feeling.

"Last character," Orochimaru warned. Kakashi dried his hands on his pants and swallowed. _What is supposed to be separated? _"Last stroke." _Gods, I hope I was right and this ritual isn't meant to be fatal. What if it's stealing part of me as a sacrifice? Or…_ His mind leapt to consider all the possibilities. Fortunately, it was swiftly prevented from doing so.

Unfortunately, the interruption was caused by Kakashi's soul being sliced efficiently into 2 parts, and the larger of the two parts being removed from his body before any part of him could even process what was happening. Before he knew it, Kakashi was left with barely enough soul in him to operate his whole body, if he really stretched. Naturally, his knees crumpled and he fell senseless into the swirling void of light beneath him.

Kakashi well and truly panicked as he raced to hold his body together before it could fall apart at the subatomic level. If he had had enough time or energy to spare for thinking, he would have thought _No! I'm not ready to lose my body yet!_ He would have realized his earlier confidence had been terribly incorrect; while he would not die from being separated from his body, his current life would end, and he was not even close to ready. He stretched the small portion of soul he was left with as far as it would go, racing to save the entirety of his immortal existence. The bones of his arms and legs shuddered and cracked. His skin passed through the entire color spectrum in seconds, heading for the point of no return.

Kakashi's mind flooded with further memories of horror as his soul returned to him. Everything he had in him strained to grab his atoms and the particles that made them up and put them back into order. Parts of his finger bones chipped off, then flaked, then only splintered. After a pause of a second during which nothing happened, the splinters began to close and the flakes return. Blood was gathered in vessels again. The epidermis on his hands had already turned sludgy and liquid, but that was fine, because the dermis still existed to grow it back. Disaster was averted.

Kakashi returned to his senses to find himself shaking and whimpering inconsolably. _Oh gods that was too close I was about to die no worse oh gods I'm scared… _It took another full minute for the immediate effects of his near-death experience to subside enough for him to move, and another several before he was remotely stable enough to open his eyes and resume thinking. He remembered the searing fear of the greater part of his soul, which had immediately realized the danger his body was in and came through the portal after him. He whispered increasingly fervent prayers of gratitude to himself. _Thank you thank you thank you, especially for your quick thinking. Thank you thank you thank you -_

He was grateful for his quick thinking because he had no idea what would have happened if the larger part of his soul hadn't wrapped itself around Clone 2 before entering the ritual. Kakashi focused his eyes and tried to actually see through them, hoping to see something to dispel his fears. What he saw did not dispel his fears so much as replace them. His entire body slackened. He would not have noticed if his eyes had floated out of their sockets. _Oh gods…_

The void was filled with people. Kakashi's eyes rolled sideways, taking in the sight of comatose people, all floating helplessly, their arms and legs slack and dangling. He squeezed his eyes shut and shocked his visual center to force a restart, and opened his eyes again.

_Oh. Oh crap. Oh fuck. _His breath released itself in big gusts of relief. The amount of people was not as great as he had thought he had seen at first; there were only a dozen or so. He was still shaking and cold, because their limbs were still dangling and horrible, but the horror wasn't quite as horrible as he'd thought.

_G - g - get a grip._ Long years of habit kicked in. _I suppose, on a technical level, what I saw in ANBU was much worse. _At the same time Kakashi recognized that what was technically true did not matter, because _Would that have happened to me if I hadn't tethered myself?! _He grabbed his lower jaw to keep from breaking his own teeth.

_Get a grip! _Kakashi slapped himself across the face. _What is going on here? _He looked around. He was floating in a void, with no sense of up or down. Despite that, all the other people were facing him and oriented the same way he was. Kakashi turned around to see a large portal behind him. From this side, it looked much larger than he was. It could have swallowed him and another two-thirds of him standing on his shoulders. Someone, for some _ludicrous_ reason (Kakashi broke out laughing at the sight), had ornamented the fucking thing! It had little decorative stones next to it, like people would put next to a gate, or something. _It's like - it - it opens in the same place every time, from this side's perspective. That's how people can orient themselves. _

He gave himself another minute before stunning his diaphragm to stop the hysterical giggling. Still clutching his aching abdomen, he looked around the portal some more. Something just below his level caught his eye. It was a large stone, like a miniature obelisk, with red strings tied to it from a multitude of directions. There was a similar stone to the right of the portal, with more red strings. Together, they served different directions, so there was no danger of someone crossing the portal and becoming entangled in string.

Kakashi turned around again, to face the people. His senses had been too horror-struck to notice before, but now he saw that each of them had a length of red string tied around their waist, tethering them to the stones placed just inside the portal. Kakashi worried he was going mad, because this arrangement made sense to him. _They need something so they won't drift away. _He looked back at the stones, and pushed himself with his arms as if he was swimming. He swam closer to the nearest stone, and saw that it had strange symbols on its back side. _The stones must be tethered to the portal itself. So the portal is fixed in place, and the stones are tethered to it, and the people are tethered to the stones. _He took several deep breaths, and faced the people again.

_I can't delay forever. _He swept his senses over the people, taking a basic image of their souls and what condition they were in. His shoulders slumped with relief. _They're alive! _Every person that he could sense was alive, with their soul tucked neatly inside their body as it should be, and both body and soul inactive. Everything was fine; they were only in stasis, waiting for time to resume so they could revive.

Kakashi looked down at himself. He was inside a storage technique. It was common knowledge that time did not seem to pass for stored items, and he could feel for himself that time was stopped for everything in this space, with the exception of himself. _Why am I still awake and able to move? _He twisted and turned, rotating his tether of darkness so that he did not trip over it or get it entangled with the red strings.

_Huh. _Kakashi looked back at his line of darkness reaching through the portal, into a realm where time passed regardless of all efforts to stop it. _Oh. I guess I didn't really need the line, then. As long as Clone 2 is still out there, I would be fine. _Kakashi did not test this hypothesis.

He swam up to one of the stored people, a woman with pale skin and red hair. He touched her face, and found that it was warm. _Not a surprise. Heat takes time to dissipate, and time is exactly what she doesn't have. _He examined the rest of her. Her hair was tied back with small ropes, as if someone had gathered all her hair and held it out, then tied ropes tightly around the base, like a giant ponytail. Kakashi did not recognize the material of the ropes; they appeared to be some kind of plant fiber he was unaware of. The same was true of her clothes, which were loose robes of a rich blue cloth, sewn together with green thread, probably the same kind of fiber but dyed. _I have never seen clothes like this…_ The billowing robes reminded Kakashi vaguely of the clothes the Sand elders had worn, but these robes were far less practical. If they were subject to gravity, the sleeves would have been much longer than her arms, and there was no division in the robes at the bottom where they covered her legs. Unlike the billowy Sand design, both sleeves and legs were actually rather tight, a detail the casual observer might have missed underneath the folds of loose cloth sewn so that they draped everywhere. It would have been difficult to walk in, and nearly impossible to use tools. Kakashi guessed this was a high class outfit, worn by a person of social standing or money or both.

Against the blue of her robes, the pale grey sheet of bark that was tied to her by the string stood out sharply. Kakashi ran his fingers lightly over the bark, finding it smooth and flexible. He saw something written on it as he did so. It was a name written in what looked like charcoal at first, but was much more stable. Kakashi wrinkled his brow. The first and third symbols were recognizable, though very different in form, but the second was not. _It looks like a cross between Su and Shi, twisted wildly like a bit of loose string, _was his first impression. _To hell with that._ Kakashi hesitated, but narrowed his focus and went ahead. For something so important as a person's name, he would make an exception to his rule. He focused his entire perception, including even his regular vision, down onto that second symbol, searching into _that symbol's _past and absolutely nothing else to find out what it was supposed to mean.

To Kakashi's surprise, his first guess was confirmed. The symbol _was_ a cross between Su and Shi. Perhaps both symbols had originated from this one. "Masiki," he pronounced. _Si. Hm. Why don't we have that one today? It isn't very difficult to pronounce. _

He took a closer look at the bark, then on a whim looked at the ropes and thread as well. They were all the same material! Kakashi's eyes widened. _Tree bark? What kind of people learned to weave tree bark so skillfully? How did they treat it? How would it be if people today did this? _Kakashi sighed. It would be _very_ interesting. The aching loss that had motivated him to pursue this ritual returned.

He shook it off and took a closer look at the other people. All of them had identical sheets tied to them. They all had the same general hairstyle, but the level at which the ropes were tied varied. Those with the ropes tied around the very ends of their hair had the dullest robes, with the least extra fabric. _Roping off hair as a measure of status? _That was a new idea! How many other new ideas did these people have to share? Kakashi shook himself and turned away. _No. It's not time. I should look around for more. _

Kakashi went from person to person, copying down the twisted symbols that made up their names. He found one other symbol that did not exist in the present time; unlike the first, this one coexisted with its modern cousins. It looked like a jellyfish, and it was pronounced _Tu._ _Tasi. Miian. Goran. Atuatu. Dua. Tsuya. _All of these fascinating names and more washed over Kakashi, allowing him to temporarily forget he had nearly died in a void of comatose bodies. _Incredible. These people are greater treasures than anything else we could have found here. _

In no time at all, he was beyond the most distant of the bodies. They were all tied rather close to the portal. Then again, what did close mean? Kakashi looked out into light that shimmered as light does when it shines onto the sea floor through clear water. He saw no end, not even a horizon. He was seeing infinity.

_Amazing…_ It was the most beautiful thing Kakashi had ever seen. A sense of profound peace washed over him. Slowly, gently, he reached out and felt for the substance of this reality. The portal opened by the ritual was too dangerous to use, but Kakashi knew he could not leave without at least making his best attempt to find another way in. Maybe he could make another portal, one that extracted a much smaller portion of the soul, just enough to prevent a visitor from being caught in stasis.

Kakashi returned to the portal and took very thorough notes on everything he could observe about its nature. _Ah, yes...I think I can work out what to do here! _To be completely sure, he would have to look at the ritual pattern and writing in it, possibly even look into their past to see how it was put together. This was too well designed to be an accidentally discovered ritual. He shrugged. If that was what he had to do, he would do it. Then, once more, he swam out to gaze into infinity.

He was aware that he would have to return soon, before Orochimaru or his clone panicked too much. That was all right. For now, Kakashi gave himself over to floating in the infinite void. He kicked out with his legs, rotating in place. He could feel himself moving, but his view did not change in the slightest. Kakashi laughed. Everywhere he looked as he spun, there was the same softly shining light, rippling gently over and over and- What was that?

Kakashi threw his arms out, stopping and reversing his spin. He thrashed frantically, trying to hold himself steady. Where had he seen it? A small point of light that had moved… Kakashi could never hope to find it by searching against the background of the void. It had only been visible because of its movement. Kakashi closed his eyes, channeling darkness into them. He couldn't see it with his _regular _vision, but that didn't have to matter. He opened his eyes.

The void was no longer so impressive looking, a flat nothing of emptiness that, if Kakashi's demon vision could see color, would have been represented as something entirely transparent. It was probably similar to the view a blind human would have of outer space if they took their protective suit off once they got up there. The feeling of no substance, not even air, against their skin would be very similar to what Kakashi saw now. In all this, the faint light he had seen shone much more brightly. Kakashi extended dark wings and raced toward it at his fastest speed.

_What?! It's so far away! _As soon as he began moving, Kakashi saw that nothing he did resulted in a visible change in its position. For all his straining, it would take a long time to reach. He strained as much as he could.

This journey started to get old after the first hour or so. Kakashi entertained himself by thinking of how much worse it would be if he did not have so much soul. _Any other demon wouldn't have enough to reach this far. I'm better than them. _That led to an interesting set of questions regarding how demons ranked themselves according to power, and where did Kakashi fall on that ranking? _How many other demons are there, anyway? I have a very distinct feeling it's a low number, but how low are we talking? _

After that got boring, he remembered his entire personal history with Orochimaru, playing it out in his mind's eye like a movie. _He saved me, in a way just as real as the way I saved myself when I came through the portal. If it hadn't happened, my entire existence would have fallen into despair. Have I ever thanked him? _He had not.

By the time Kakashi was done wondering how Orochimaru was feeling right now and chastising himself for not sending a message back to let the snake know he was alright, the distant object was visibly closer. His eyes widened as he saw that it _was_ an object. His eyes were still in demon-vision mode, so that could only mean one thing. _It's a soul out there!_

Kakashi disabled his sense of time for being an unnecessary hindrance. Thus it felt like no time at all before Kakashi reactivated his sense of time, slowed down, and finally came to a stop in front of the lost soul. It was very, very small. Kakashi reactivated his demon vision several times to confirm what his human eyes were seeing. Allegedly, he was supposed to be looking at a full-sized person. _That is not the soul of a human. If it really stretched, it could barely influence his upper body from his brain to his arms, _maybe._ What happened to him? _

The man he was looking at was fairly dark skinned, though not more so than if he was simply tanned. The darkness of his skin was probably an optical illusion caused by the contrast with his white hair, which was whiter than anything Kakashi had ever seen, as in, he wondered if it was generating its own completely fused light. His facial features were soft, like a boy's. Kakashi thought he could not be older than 20, and if it wasn't for his fully-grown body he could've passed for 10. His hair was mostly straight, its longest strands curling in around his chin. Of all the accessories Kakashi had seen, this boy's were the most elaborate. His hair was studded with precious stones so that it seemed to be a solid wave of them. A very thin layer of bark-thread was woven directly onto his scalp, clearly showing his hairline as if he was a drawing. He wore the same extravagant robes as the others, but his were far more practical. They lacked the folds of loose cloth the others had had, clearly showing the outline of his body. The sleeves were not longer than his arms; they came down to cover half of his palm, at most. The robe was 80% divided, practically morphing into pants as it crossed his waist, except for the inside of each leg not being closed. It was a very light greenish-white in color, and sewn so finely Kakashi could not see the threads unless he looked very, very hard. His feet had shoes covered in scales that probably doubled as armor, but they lacked soles. Of all the details of his appearance, this and the scalp-level weaving intrigued Kakashi the most, and aroused his pity. _He must be the highest ranked person here, perhaps in a specialized role since his clothing allows for easy movement, yet this is the fate he gets? To be cast off into eternity, on the verge of being lost so far that even a demon could hardly see him? _

Kakashi pitied the boy, and wept for him. The sight of the red string floating loose, held only by the chance closeness of two of his fingers, and a sheet of unmarked bark tucked into his robe, only intensified Kakashi's grief. Kakashi thanked everyone and everything, right down to the nature of reality itself, that he _did_ have enough soul to leave a line this long. Gently, he folded the boy's arms in front of him, and took the boy in his arms. Kakashi closed his eyes as he reabsorbed his tether as fast as possible, and concentrated on the mostly empty shell of the skilled and lost boy in his arms. He did not open his eyes again until he felt the extremely rude shock of time and gravity returning, and his body hitting the hard stone ground.

A loud sound caused Kakashi to wince in pain. The void had been filled only with the pleasant white noise of his own thoughts. _Ah, how long was I in there? _More sounds followed. Kakashi deadened some pain receptors and opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was his own clone looking at his face, searching intently for any sign of injury. "Ah, thank the gods," the clone whispered when it did not find any. This was maybe one second before the clone was thrown out of Kakashi's field of vision by Orochimaru.

"Puppy? What the hell happened?!" Orochimaru snarled. His eyes were _murderous_.

"Ow," the clone said.

Kakashi was too busy paying attention to the body in his arms to respond. Without saying a word, he pushed Orochimaru away with a giant paw of darkness. He didn't continue looking to find out if Orochimaru felt hurt or not. As quickly and gently as he could, Kakashi laid the boy on the ground.

_I'm sorry. _As he had feared, the boy's soul was too small to do anything. His body did not even resume breathing. _At least, this way, someone can remember you. _The least he deserved was a decent funeral, even if Kakashi could do nothing else for him.

"Who is that?" Orochimaru asked. He knelt on the other side of the boy. "Is he…?"

Kakashi cupped the boy's cheek tenderly. "I found him lost in there. There's nothing we can do."

Orochimaru glared back at the ritual, whose portal was now closed. "What the hell ki-"

They both felt the sudden presence, just before it descended with greater speed and force than Kakashi had ever felt. He barely saw the room turn black and smoky before he was inside the blackness, struggling not to inhale the disordered remnants of the ghost's soul. _So glad I instinctively pulled my darkness away from it,_ he thought while he turned off his breathing center. He could hear Orochimaru choking.

Then, it was gone. Orochimaru bent forward and coughed out the last bit of smoke, which seemed intent on escaping from his lungs under its own power anyway. These last few wisps settled onto the boy's skin and disappeared.

Orochimaru caught his breath in large gasps of air. "What - was tha - t?" He stared down at the boy as his breathing returned to normal.

Kakashi stared at the boy too. Gently, he gathered the boy in his arms and held him to his chest again. He felt a puff of warmth on his cheek next to the boy's head, and the boy's chest began to rise and fall ever so slightly.

The dark clone came over to watch. His eyes bulged as he saw the movement under the boy's robe. Orochimaru held the boy's head with one hand and pulled one of his eyelids up with the other.

His pupil was enormous and round, surrounded by a soft glimmering green.

.

.

.

**A/N: Yep, a storage ritual. Who woulda thunk it? I was initially thinking Kakashi was going to explain at the end of this chapter, but that would have just ruined the mood. You'll have to find out what happened next chapter. **

**Speaking of next chapter, it's not going to come out for a while. The oldest character in canon would be Kaguya, so in order to have any idea what I'm talking about with regards to people who lived that long ago, I should watch at least enough of the anime to see her appear. I'm at around episode 410, but revisiting the series after so long writing my own stories is making the series' writing problems really stand out. I'll try to push through it, but it could be a while before I can get around to very much. Although, that may not prevent me from working on further chapters of this story, as the former ghost isn't going to be doing anything for a while. And before anyone asks why I was able to give details of how they dressed and such in this chapter, I could always handwave that away as the world being more diverse back then and this group of people being different. I'm not actually sure when they come from - it could be somewhat more than 1000 years ago, like 1200 or something. I don't know. **

**The mystery ships mentioned here won't be showing up for a while, at least not until he's conscious most of the time. Why weren't they mentioned last chapter? That's because I didn't actually do any thinking about what Kakashi had read in the book until after I posted last chapter. The lost civilization is just another one of the mysteries! Yeah! That's it!**

**I only realized after I went off on that tangent about history that it provided a perfect ending to this arc. My thoughts went, "Hey, this interest in history provides me with the perfect reason to have them open a storage ritual, of all things. Wait... Did I have any idea how I was going to get them to do that before?!" No, I did not. I had a vague kinda expectation that the ghost plot would last longer, but no actual expectations, so it was fine to take this solution to a problem I didn't even know I had and implement it right now. **

**Yes, Japanese does not have any symbols for Tu or Si. They only have Tsu and Shi. I had an idea for a character named Simo that I came up with before I started learning Japanese at all, and as I started listing those names, specifically Atuatu and Dua, it felt funny, so I had to check. Japanese is weird. Why would most of the language be consonant+vowel combinations, except for those two combinations? It don't make no sense!**

**I've always liked linguistics. It's going to be fun figuring out how they talked back then! Yahahahaaa!**


	13. Spot The Problem

**A/N: Made it to episode 412! Yeah...my quest to finish the show will take forever at this rate. **

**More discussion of hiragana to follow. It concerns the symbols' appearance, so it would be helpful to have Google ready.**

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Orochimaru stared into the green eyes. There was no sign of recognition. The boy's eyes did not focus, or look around, or do anything at all. They looked, for all intents and purposes, dead.

Kakashi closed the boy's eyes. "That's enough," he said. It was obvious that the boy was in no condition to respond.

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes, continuing to stare at the boy. "A storage ritual?" He smirked. "I never would have guessed it."

"This isn't an ordinary storage ritual," Kakashi told him. "You won't guess what I found in it, either."

"Do enlighten me." Orochimaru's eyes sparked dangerously as he looked into Kakashi's. In his peripheral vision, Kakashi saw the dark clone shrug helplessly. The snake must have seen the clone's panic.

He sighed. "I admit it. I inaccurately estimated how much the ritual could be capable of hurting me." He flushed and scratched his head, not looking away from Orochimaru's eyes.

"By how much?" The snake's tone was veering dangerously close to sarcastic. Kakashi anticipated that if he didn't give just the right answer to that question, Orochimaru's words would turn sarcastic, then downright mocking, before achieving new heights of caustic. The snake's tongue could be weaponized to great effect any time he wanted.

Kakashi winced in anticipated pain before answering. "Everything I said was correct," he explained. "My soul can be split, and no harm done. My body can be split, and it would be trivial to put it back together." He paused. "What I forgot to account for was the possibility of my soul and body being split from each other."

Kakashi gulped. "You remember those mice? Well, my own body is not an exception. The only reason it doesn't happen is because I use my darkness to hold my body together at all times. If I can't do that…" He looked away from Orochimaru now out of a desire not to terrify his companion. Kakashi knew the fear in his eyes as he remembered his panic would be contagious.

Orochimaru sat back wordlessly. Kakashi's tail remained plastered to his leg even after the dark clone came over and started grooming his hair, trying to make him feel better.

"Wait," Orochimaru interrupted. "That shouldn't... " He shook his head. Kakashi watched his smooth black hair fly back and forth. "Those mice were subjected to the presence of darkness in their bodies. You were prevented from holding yourself together because you had most of your darkness taken out of your body. If most of it was gone -"

Kakashi shook his head. "The damage done by darkness isn't so easily stopped. It destroyed those mice on a very fundamental level of reality." Goosebumps rose all over his body at the thought. "All my darkness can do is physically hold the subatomic particles together. Physically holding them does nothing to stop reality itself from going wrong in my cells. If you give it enough time, the damage accumulates. Things disappear, change into other things randomly, lose or gain physical properties at random. Using my darkness like the world's smallest puppet strings can't prevent that. All it does is slow the decay. If I let go after any of that has begun to happen, my body will crumble very, very quickly." His voice broke as he remembered how that had almost happened. "Think of it as my darkness destroying a building's mortar and taking its place. If it goes, the building will have no mortar, and it will fall."

Kakashi stopped and took deep breaths, trying to make the goosebumps go down and stop himself from shaking. _I came this close to dying, to losing my body and having to face eternity alone. _He knew Orochimaru would understand that, even if they both left it unspoken. Kakashi held the comatose boy tighter, but what he really wanted to do was hold Orochimaru and never let go.

The snake ground his teeth together. "And you just _forgot about_ the possibility of that happening? After everything you've ever said?"

Kakashi ducked his head. "Yes. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I will never interact with anything that could split me ever again." He placed the boy on the ground and bowed, touching his forehead to the floor. _What would that have done to him? To be so sure that his closest companion is a being nothing can harm, and then to have me taken away from him by a careless mistake? _Kakashi could imagine the mental whiplash, how unable Orochimaru would be to ever reconcile Kakashi's demonic strength with his surprise vulnerability. In the confusion, what would he have thought? Would he have blamed himself? _I am so sorry. I will never, ever put you through that. _Kakashi pressed his forehead to the ground harder, apologizing at least as much to himself as to Orochimaru, if not more.

The room was deafeningly silent. Kakashi kept his forehead on the ground and started praying. He directed his prayers to the stone serpent goddess, though he had no idea if she could hear him any more than he could hear her. She was all he had. _Please, please let me not have hurt him so badly. Please help him if I have. _If he had hurt his best-ever friend, lover, companion, packmate, family, _everything_, he would not be able to live with himself one moment longer. And yet, he would have to. Kakashi shook with fear and remembered his mental breakdown of several weeks ago. Now, when he felt the same as he had felt back then, he understood what he had been saying. With every moment of life, he could and would hurt someone that he cared for. In their humanness, their tendency to live as if life was forever, they wouldn't forgive him immediately. He would lose time. In every waking moment, he would always be losing time he was desperate to have, and nobody would ever be able to understand why he was so desperate to have that time. Nobody could ever understand. Regret would pile up, agony upon agony, and he would never be able to escape. Kakashi prayed at superhuman speed under his breath, not realizing he was. It was useless. He was on the edge of an infinity of agony and shrieking helplessness. No matter how long he managed to keep it at bay, sooner or later the wounds in his soul would grow too numerous. His future was destined to become Hell.

"So what did you find?" asked Orochimaru in a low voice. Kakashi mustered up some small gratitude for interrupting his train of increasingly horrible thoughts, even if the feelings behind them were unchanged. He lifted his forehead from the floor and folded his hands in his lap.

"Well," he began. "I know now how the ritual works and why our ghost became a ghost." He gathered the boy's slack body in his arms again just to have something warm to hold. "It has to do with what the ritual was meant to hold."

He took a deep breath. _Focus. Organize your thoughts. It's just like a mission summary. _Kakashi knew that was what Orochimaru needed. They both needed to withdraw from feelings, return to the cold, clinical, orderly environment of the mind for a while.

"This ritual was meant to hold people," he told Orochimaru.

"People?" The snake was aghast, and no wonder. Storage rituals or jutsus of any kind could not be used to hold living things. Their very nature was against life, like a jar of formaldehyde, a freezer, or an airless void. The unchanged condition of anything that was stored and retrieved could attest to that. Such a lack of change could not happen in an environment where life was possible. The Snake Sannin's eyes began to glitter as his initial reaction disappeared. As expected, he wouldn't stay averse to the idea of something unnatural for very long.

Kakashi nodded. "They were arranged in a very orderly setup. There were two stones placed inside of the portal, which the people were tethered to by red strings. The strings wrapped around their waists also held in place a sheet of bark that they wrote on like paper, recording their names." He waved over the red string and bark that he had brought back with the boy. "Each sheet was written on in different handwriting. This leads me to think the people wrote it themselves, and tied the strings themselves."

Orochimaru sat down again. He did not sit as close to Kakashi as he had before, but it still indicated that he was more comfortable. They were dealing in ideas now. "Themselves? _After_ being stored? How could that have been possible?"

Kakashi explained, "That's why the storage ritual splits the soul of whoever uses it. As long as some portion of my soul was on the outside of the ritual, where time was still passing, and the portal was open, time still passed for me inside the storage space. I was still capable of movement." He looked down at the boy, smoothing his white hair back from his youthful face. "I know what happened to him.

"The portal closed too early." Kakashi pointed his chin at the drawn circles. "Perhaps there was an attack or other disturbance while the ritual was being completed, or maybe it was an accident. Either way, the storage space was closed off before the portion of his soul that was left on this side could join the rest of him. When I found him, I saw just enough soul to stretch from his head to arms. It's possible he could have written and tied string with that minimal amount. Then the rest of him was supposed to be sent through, which would leave him with no link to the outside world, and he would be successfully stored."

"But it closed while he was still separated, storing him too early," Orochimaru finished. "So most of his soul was just abandoned on this side, without a body." His eyes were appropriately horrified, Kakashi was happy to note.

The wolf ninja nodded. "Everyone else I saw had their entire soul safely stored with their bodies, ready to be retrieved and awoken. He was very unlucky."

Orochimaru got to his feet and walked back over to the circles. He peered down into them. "What could be the purpose of storing people?" he wondered aloud. His head tilted as he considered the possibilities. "Intact and ready to be revived, no less. And in a way that requires their cooperation." He hissed. "It could be an experimental way to attain a kind of immortality, but it's far too dangerous for my tastes."

Kakashi left the boy with his clone as he walked over to Orochimaru, careful not to stand too close. "They all had accessories indicating that they were of a high class. Clothes that hindered movement, fancy embroidery, that sort of thing. It's possible they were saved for a specific reason, to provide their skills or knowledge to the future."

Orochimaru snorted. "Clothes that hinder movement aren't the sort of thing you would find on anyone who was expected to have usable skills."

"Diferent society," Kakashi reminded him. "Less warlike. If there was no need to be ready for battle, why would a dedicated scholar need to be able to move rapidly? It was nothing so restrictive as to render them useless and make others have to carry them around everywhere. They just couldn't have performed physical work or walked at more than a steady shuffle."

Orochimaru said, "If they were meant to be a living library for the future, they've become more needed than they could have dreamed." He bent down to trace the writing between the two circles. "What kind of writing did you see?"

Kakashi told him of the two symbols that no longer existed, admitting that he had been forced to use his powers to look into the past to see how they were pronounced. "I was _very careful_ to narrow my view to only those symbols and nothing else," he made sure to communicate. "I will not look at anything else in the past unless I should be forced to again. These were their _names_. It was essential."

Orochimaru held up a hand and murmured, "I know, and I would not ask you to," in a soft voice that was probably meant to be soothing but felt patronizing. Kakashi attributed his ruffled feathers to stress and kept them to himself. He ignored Orochimaru and used his darkness to recreate the symbols in midair, fiddling with and adjusting them until he had them exactly like he had seen them in the storage space.

He put one symbol to the side and focused on the other. It was a single continuous line, which started at the top and went down, making one left-facing loop as it did so. Then it bent to the right and curved back up, making another up-facing loop that made the line end pointing downward, as if it had flicked its tail. "This is pronounced Si_._"

Orochimaru tried to pronounce that, but it came out as a more sibilant version of Shi. "It's related to Su," Kakashi provided helpfully. Orochimaru tried again, and achieved more success, although this attempt sounded like Sui with the "u" part glossed over.

Kakashi accepted that as good enough and brought the other symbol into focus. It was also one single line, which started at the bottom, curved up, made a single down-facing loop at the top, and curved back down again symmetrically. "This is Tu. It looks like a jellyfish to me."

Orochimaru tried to pronounce this, and had similar difficulties as before. He settled for something that sounded like Teyu, with the "e" glossed over this time. _Hm. We don't have a Ti either. Interesting. _Kakashi had never thought he would be so interested in language at any point in his life. _I wonder if it is possible to study language? What would such a branch of study be called? Langology? Langistics? _At any rate, he did not deem this good enough. Orochimaru sighed and clicked his tongue, saying "t" without making any other sound. To their mutual surprise, the required sound added itself on as though it did not need to be pronounced. Kakashi nodded.

Orochimaru smirked at his newly mastered pronunciations. He then approached Kakashi, coming to a stop on the other side of the symbols floating in midair. Kakashi kept his eyes firmly on the symbols, not willing to push things by meeting Orochimaru's gaze, but the closeness was enough. It had to be.

Orochimaru appeared to be doing likewise, from what Kakashi could see in his peripheral vision. "There's no cross," he observed of Si.

Kakashi nodded. "That was typical of everything I saw in there. It was all recognizable, but much more curvy and connected than is typical today." He drew the archaic symbol for Na in midair as an example. "They wrote this in one stroke."

Orochimaru nodded. "Yes, I've seen those loops in older texts. I wondered if it was a handwriting quirk."

"If so, everyone I saw in storage has the same quirks." Kakashi scratched his head. "I didn't see many kanji on these sheets of bark. I have no idea what their names mean, or if they mean anything at all. The few I saw were mostly women with flowers in their names, and one man who was named after the mountains."

Orochimaru hissed. "Why didn't you say that sooner? All of this symbology is nice, but there aren't any new ideas here." He pushed aside Kakashi's creations. "_That_ is much more important. Names that have no meaning except for being names is a new idea. I have to wonder how they come up with names if that's the case."

Kakashi stared at Orochimaru's sudden fervor. He wouldn't have though Orochimaru knew what the true importance of a name was. Most humans seemed not to. Except… _He is named after his most obvious trait, a trait which keeps him from easily relating to people. _Kakashi looked at his companion with new eyes. Had Orochimaru ever wished for a name that didn't label him as a snake? Was he lonely? Kakashi knew what it was like to balance different aspects of one's self. Different species were a particularly hard thing to balance. Did having a name biased towards one thing make it more difficult to get a balanced idea of who and what he was? Kakashi wagged _Sympathy._ His own family had steered clear of names relating to animals altogether. He knew the reasons for that.

"Would things have been different if you had been named that way?" he ventured cautiously. Perhaps it was too soon. Perhaps Orochimaru would be unhappy with him for bringing them back to the realm of the personal. Kakashi decided that was worth the risk.

Orochimaru's glittering, interested gaze faded. His eyes returned to seeing reality as it was, not as he imagined it ought to be. Kakashi preferred his interested look. Orochimaru didn't look nearly as kindly at reality as it was. The snake's eyes were relatively dull as he continued to look away from Kakashi, tracing the curve of one of the symbols. "Perhaps," he acknowledged. They stood in silence for several seconds. The Snake Sannin's eyes hardened. "But I've grown quite attached to my name. If I had, I might have chosen my name despite that."

Kakashi smiled. "Yeah, just as I could name myself after the wolves. The reason I don't is that, to be honest, I think of the people that are important to me saying my name whenever I think about my name. There's a particular sound to the way Naruto yelled 'Kakashi-sensei!' that I can't imagine giving up." Kakashi shook his head to drive away the sudden pain of those memories. "But, but, at least it would be my choice. Nobody in my clan would dare name their child after any kind of beast. That kind of pressure is not acceptable to place on a child." He said this with great sternness. He _knew _it to be unacceptable like he knew the earth to be a wild thing full of change and fury. Those were _facts_.

Orochimaru crossed his arms. "I am what I am. I am _not_ part of your clan. My name is my own, and it fits me perfectly. It is _mine._ My name is not bad."

Kakashi raised his hands defensively. "I know. It isn't a _bad _name at all. I'm just questioning the wisdom of your parents to choose it before they had any idea that it fit you, or that you could carry it." He sighed. "I'm of two minds about names. On the one hand, a name should reflect who you are. On the other hand, it usually does, if only because people adapt themselves to their names. Is it right to mold a person to grow in a certain way from birth?"

Orochimaru uncrossed his arms as soon as Kakashi said he was questioning the wisdom of Orochimaru's parents. He nodded along with the rest of Kakashi's statement. "I agree. If I hadn't grown so used to it, there _is_ one change I would like to make to my name." Orochimaru grinned. "I would like to change its ending. You have to agree, a name which ends in such a masculine way really doesn't suit me."

Kakashi raised his eyebrows. "Why does the fact that you spend a lot of time undercover as a woman mean your name doesn't suit? It is true that you have to go by a completely different name as a woman, but you would have to anyway since you use that form to conceal your identity."

Orochimaru shook his head. "I'm not talking about the surface-level uses of a name, Puppy. 'A name should reflect who you are.' There are reasons I spend so much time as a woman. On a more fundamental level of how I see myself, I'm sure you can agree, I'm not very attached to seeing myself as a man. A more flexible name would show that better."

After hearing his own words quoted back at him and explained, Kakashi was forced to agree. _It's true that he is much more comfortable with being female than anybody else I've ever heard of. But isn't that for perverted reasons? I thought… _Kakashi's tail wagged _Embarrassment_, and he turned red. _My gods. I've been thinking of Orochimaru in the same way as everyone else does. I just assumed that part of the rumors was correct. _"S-sorry," he apologized. "I've spent too much time in Konoha, apparently. The rumors have a different explanation for that."

Orochimaru's grin disappeared. "Let me guess. Perversion?"

Kakashi nodded. "My apologies. I tried to ignore them, but that doesn't mean I didn't hear them. And Naruto did create a very similar jutsu for perverted reasons of his own. But that's no reason to just assume the reasons you have for doing things. My sincerest apologies." He bowed his head. _I don't think he's a pervert like rumor makes him out to be...do I? _

Orochimaru slowly exhaled through his nose. "Well, I wouldn't expect anyone else to understand. Especially not the general public. They can believe what they want; it's not as if I set out to be liked."

Kakashi bit back the retort _Being understood is different from being liked. Nobody can stand to be misunderstood unless they deliberately aim to mislead, not even by enemies. _Questioning Orochimaru's judgment of how he felt was not going to make him feel better. Kakashi kept his opinions about Orochimaru's opinions to himself. Instead, he said, "I'm not the general public. I'm not anyone else. So, what is there to understand?"

Orochimaru stayed quiet and rubbed his chin as if thinking about how to respond. In that quiet, the dark clone's sigh seemed very loud. Kakashi remembered the dark symbols and reabsorbed them. Orochimaru looked around his shoulder as he did so. "Is there a problem?" he asked the clone.

The dark clone started at his words. "Damn…" He hung his head and sighed. "I was worrying whether or not to interrupt. I didn't want to." He raised his head and looked at the two of them. "I already have, so I might as well say what I need to say. What I need to say is, time is once more passing for this kid. A basic scan of his body shows that he didn't torture himself by fasting before the ritual."

Kakashi's eyes widened. "And his soul is in no condition to control his body yet, let alone attend to any of the business of living. Understood." He turned to Orochimaru. "I'm sorry. I really _do_ want to hear what you have to say, but he's going to need care until his soul heals. If it ever heals." _I hope I caught him in time._

The snake nodded once. "Naturally. We should make plans for how to do so. Will this facility do, or should we move him to a larger base?"

Kakashi thought of the stone serpent. "No, I think we should stay here." He pointed his chin at the ritual. "This base has towns nearby, the ritual circles already drawn, and we know _she's_ here. She might be able to help him."

The dark clone pointed out, "We came here to solve a mystery. That mystery's solved, and now we have others. We should follow the mystery." He and Kakashi's main body shared a look. _One mystery in particular. _

Orochimaru saw the look. "I imagine that's not a complete list of reasons." He turned away. "But it'll do. If whatever you just looked at each other about is relevant, mention it." He walked over to the bottled plant specimens.

_Oh, yes, those. _Kakashi was very glad he'd discovered an easy way to make clones. His life was about to get very busy. "Oh, we were just thinking about a couple of mysteries we found on the shelf you indicated that was filled with local lore," he explained as he poured out two dark clones to gather the supplies and return them. "To speak the full truth...I would have smacked you and refused if you suggested we move on."

He added, "But that's also something to worry about after the boy has healed as much as possible," in response to Orochimaru's pleasantly surprised look. Kakashi wagged his tail _Happy. _That was a good look on Orochimaru's face.

"Unwavering disobedience in pursuit of your desires," Orochimaru said through a grin. "Shows you have backbone, Puppy."

Kakashi nodded. His two new clones carried the supplies out the door, leaving Kakashi once more in the company of Orochimaru and his older clone. He turned to the clone. "Ah...are you ready to…?"

The clone nodded and stood up. He turned back to undisguised darkness and flowed into Kakashi's body, rejoining the rest of his soul. Kakashi gasped and clamped his jaw shut just in time to prevent himself from crying out in horror as the memories sunk in. He stumbled, but did not fall. The most recent memories were very intense. This clone had screamed in horror as he realized what such a large mass of darkness remaining in the air over the ritual must mean, had stopped himself at the last moment from lunging forward after his body, had kept himself planted firmly in place as an anchor despite his burning need to know if everything was alright. He had also felt guilt at seeing the look on Orochimaru's face after he screamed, had wanted to comfort Orochimaru, had resisted giving in to Orochimaru's repeated threats of extravagant tortures if the clone didn't tell him what had happened _now._ And, for the last several hours, he'd sat alone in a bare stone room, with nothing but questions and fears to keep him company. Strangely, Kakashi found this to be the worst part of the memories.

He regained his footing and stood. He felt Orochimaru's attention on him, and knew the snake was addressing him when he said, "I may have threatened your clone with a variety of painful fates earlier."

"None as painful as having to sit around for several hours," Kakashi replied. "I really should have sent the reassuring news back through my tether before going after him."

The snake's attention turned elsewhere. "What are your plans?"

Kakashi held up his fingers for counting. "One, I wanted to look at the ritual. The void was _beautiful._ I insist on showing it to you, as soon as I can find another way in. Two, I am going to station a clone or something similar in the port towns for, ah, personal reasons. I will need one clone to look after him at all times, as well. Further research that shelf of local lore, in addition." Kakashi trailed off. There was so much to do, where would he even begin?

"In short, I'm going to need many, many clones," he concluded. "Thankfully, I can make many, many clones with no problems. Even if I give all of them a decent quantity of darkness for their own use, I would barely notice. I must be very powerful as demons go."

Orochimaru sighed. "I would like to learn so much more about your kind, take it on as my new life goal, even. If only that wasn't impossible." He hissed under his breath.

Kakashi scratched his head. "If we're really unlucky, we might eventually meet another demon. Then you and I will both find out what the rest of my kind is like."

Orochimaru turned back. "Alright. Make as many clones as you need. _I _will follow up on what you said earlier." He cast a scornful glance back at the ritual circles as he left the room. Kakashi sighed.

The two new clones came back. Kakashi beckoned them back in, because he had created them before taking back the older clone's memories. He reabsorbed these two, gave his soul a thorough stirring so the memories were evenly distributed, and created two more clones. "You," he told Clone 1, "get to study the ritual. I have a feeling he would prefer if my real body was nowhere near it."

Clone 1 saluted. "Yes!"

"You get to read the entirety of all the books on that shelf," Kakashi told Clone 2, "with some assistance." He created 3 more clones and sent them off with Clone 2. Kakashi then set himself to thinking of things for clones to do and creating clones to fill that need. He told Clone 3, "You will look after the boy, starting immediately." Clone 3 nodded and picked up the boy to move him to a better location. Kakashi checked his chakra, saw that he had enough, and created a shadow clone. "You will go to the nearest port town and keep eyes and ears out for one of those ships," he told the shadow clone. _Dark clones have a downside. If my darkness is being used as a material, it moves slower than it would if it was not. So a shadow clone can disperse and the news will reach me instantly, whereas a dark clone will take more time to return. _

The shadow clone came closer. "About that…" he whispered, as if Orochimaru hadn't already left the room. "What about the..._other things?_ It was written that the arrival of a mystery ship is big news; there's no way I can miss it. So why don't I spend my spare time searching for evidence of the _other_ mysteries?"

Kakashi rubbed his chin. "Give me a moment to figure out how much help you would need for that."

_Let's see. The book described rumors of all kinds of monstrous things that leave overly large footprints in the sand. My senses can be spread very wide, so I should only need one clone to find them. Even if it is magic, magic isn't usually divine, so my senses can still work. _He looked down. _Assuming there isn't some completely unexplainable reason why my senses wouldn't work. I'll send one clone as a preliminary measure. _

_Speaking of magic, I'll need one clone to investigate the operations of those so-called 'sea witches" who charge people money for things. If any of them are charlatans, they'll have literal hell to pay for scamming poor fishers,_ Kakashi decided. _One clone to look at those rocks, the rest of the seabed, and the water itself, because why not? I should also have one clone on standby, in case there are other mysteries that humans simply can't perceive. _

"Here it is," he told the shadow clone. "You will bring 3 assistants with you." He produced 3 dark clones. "One will investigate the waters of the bay, the seabed itself, and of course that rock formation Orochimaru told us about. One will follow up on traces of monstrous creatures. And one will investigate those people that claim to use magic in exchange for money. Give them a serving of hell if they're scammers."

One dark clone's hand shot up. "Called it!" He immediately turned his vest bright yellow to mark himself. "I'm composed of a particularly righteous portion of our soul," he explained to every other version of Kakashi.

"Right…" The original turned to his shadow clone. "Anyway, you will keep track of all of them and integrate their discoveries. In addition, you will keep your demon senses open at all times. With this many mysteries, it's a _fact_ that this region is host to some strange phenomena. Some of the phenomena, or even the source behind all of them, may only be visible to nonhuman senses."

The shadow clone's eyes began to shine, and he nodded gratefully. Kakashi smiled back at him. _Downside number two to dark clones: they only bring their memories back to whoever they return to. Perhaps it has to do with chakra creating a network between a person and their clones, which might allow memories to travel to all parts of the network? My darkness is not linked that way. Perhaps I could get it to…? _

"Excuse me," one of the dark clones interrupted. "I have an idea."

"Let's hear it," Kakashi invited.

"Our darkness can interact with the fabric of reality," the clone began. "With that being the case, perhaps we could learn to use it to warp the fabric of reality, bending space and time, and recreating the effects of space-time jutsu. If we do _that_, then you can create little soul-packets every time you have new information, send them to us, and we can share information that way."

Kakashi immediately created a little dark frame, little more than wings and legs. It fluttered in the air before perching on one finger. "Alright, let's try that," he announced. He decided to send it to Clone 3. _Alright, now let's see what we can do with reality here. _Kakashi brought darkness to his eyes again to take a better look.

His eyes grew wide and his jaw slackened as he saw what reality looked like in this view. _Holy mother of bones, it's _pretty. He stared at something that, lacking the words, he could only compare to the inside of a living creature's tissues. It was a constant flurry of activity, as if he was inside a hive of bees, only the activity came from no apparent source. It seemed that the whole system was filled to the brim with energy, vibrating and quaking and generally showing signs of being ready to explode. Kakashi could sense a vast majesty to it, like a fish that can feel the vast movements of the ocean despite being in only one small spot of water. _Fish probably can't do that. It must be more inexplicable demonic knowledge. _

This inexplicable knowledge drew him inexorably to a certain part of reality. The vast majesty was disturbed here. With his demon eyes, Kakashi could see the fabric of reality shuddering, and as he approached the source of the disturbance, the fabric changed shape and became different, unnatural. Kakashi backed away from what he perceived as spikes embedded in the creature's tissues. Tremendous tangles of substance existed here, catching on nearby parts of reality. Kakashi backed away very carefully, checking to see that none of his soul had become caught. _What the hell is this? _

He gaped at it, horrified. After some time of staring, he saw that the tangle was not impenetrable. After being caught, parts of reality would abruptly move on, leaving a little shred of themselves behind. This little portion disappeared into the tangle. Kakashi wondered where the shreds disappeared to. _Is there something on the other side? _

A glimpse of light drew his attention. Kakashi turned and saw, around the curve of the tangle, souls. He would have missed them if not for the great quantity of them. He started toward them, drawn as always by the great quantity of soul energy, but stopped. Something about this journey felt familiar, in an eerie way which reminded Kakashi of other things. He needed to know where this feeling was coming from before he risked it. But far more importantly, the tangle was in the way. There was no way Kakashi could get there without getting caught in it. The thick tangle was to reality as a rock is to a stream, except this rock had tendrils and spikes coming off of it, filtering the water which passed through. A scary idea came to Kakashi. He spread his senses throughout this patch of reality, and observed a soul being swept toward the boundary. It got caught in an outer portion of the tangle, as expected. After a brief pause, it kept moving, its energetic nature preventing it from staying in limbo for very long. Kakashi watched a small portion of the soul fall into the tangle. He felt sick. _What will happen to it? _

He heard a wave pass over him. A message. It was his own message. Kakashi remembered what he had been trying to do. _Ah, right. How do I…? _Following the small waves, Kakashi saw that they were coming from pieces of his own soul. Reality was echoing strangely as it passed over him. He really hoped the disturbance disappeared, became nothing more than a part of the background static. _Well, even if it does cause some disturbance, demons have always existed, so their echoes are probably a part of reality that I'm already used to. _He shivered anyway.

He reached out with his soul and shaped it into a tunnel between one part of reality and another. The very small speck of himself raced through the tunnel, reaching the part of himself that was next to a half-invisible disordered soul in literally no time. Kakashi returned to his place and took the darkness away from his eyes. He opened them to see the world restored to lights and colors once more.

Clone 1, the shadow clone, and all 3 of the shadow clone's assistants were staring wide-eyed. Kakashi scratched the back of his neck and chuckled. _How the hell can I begin to explain what I've just seen? _"Mah, what'd I miss?"

"You disappeared!" the shadow clone exclaimed.

Kakashi blinked at them. "Oh, _crap._" He looked down at his body. "I saw something interesting in another part of reality and went to investigate. I must have brought my body with me. I hope it didn't draw attention."

"Something interesting?" one of the assistants asked.

Kakashi made several more frames and gave a copy of his recent memories to all of the clones present. They all looked shell-shocked while they processed them. Kakashi chuckled as they began to give him disbelieving looks. _I don't understand it any more than you do. _

"Seems like _all_ of us have work to do," the shadow clone said smugly. "We have our jobs, and _you_ get to figure out what the hell that is."

Kakashi reminded him, "You are also me, so stop sounding so smug."

"I think I know what that was," the yellow-vested clone announced. "The soul we saw was being swept helplessly toward a huge gathering of others that's far denser than what we saw on this side. The only scenario which matches that observation is someone dying and crossing over to the afterlife. Which explains why it felt so familiar, because we almost did that once."

"But we didn't," Kakashi realized. "Just as I didn't now. I almost, but didn't quite, manage to cross over."

"Would crossing that have forced you to leave the body behind?" another clone asked.

Kakashi went cold. "Probably not, because the tangle isn't supposed to be there so it can't be a natural part of reality like death is, but there may be other differences in the fabric of reality which would have forced me to. I choose, right now, to never, ever find out." The clones agreed with this decision.

"At any rate," Kakashi went on, "keep your eyes open." He turned to the shadow clone. "Specifically, _you_. You're going to be keeping your senses fully open, so make sure to pay attention and note anything you see which could be related to the tangle."

Clone 1 took a deep breath and returned to studying the ritual circles. "I will too. Perhaps in trying to find a way into the storage space, I could find something relevant."

Kakashi nodded. "If anyone needs me, I'll be with Clone 3, updating him. Go!"

The clones departed.

.

**A/N: If you have questions about what a giant soul-shredding tangle is doing in the middle of reality, I have no idea. If you want to know what it does, head over to my other story, New Life. There's only so much I can explain inside of one story set in a single universe. **

**The tangle will be coming back to play a role in this story, though. Count on it. **


	14. Own Your Fears

Nothing of importance happened that night. That was okay, because Orochimaru had better things to worry about. Kakashi was secretly relieved. _Would I really have tried to mate with him? Would it have felt good at all? _

He shoved those worries aside and did not think of them any longer. His tail wagged _Sadness_ as he got ready for bed. Kakashi was stumped by Orochimaru's behavior. He would have thought, after all of his companion's questions about what he was and why, that the snake would be interested in someone else like himself. Instead, Orochimaru had not had any contact with the boy, not even stopping in to ask Kakashi how he was. _Maybe he's uncomfortable around someone helpless who he isn't trying to take advantage of. Maybe he needs some time to get used to the idea of someone like him even existing. _Kakashi resolved to sleep on it, and try to comfort Orochimaru in the morning. _At least we stayed here, where his mother is. She can help comfort him if that's what he needs._

_*Ding*_ Kakashi immediately sent another little frame to his caretaking clone, who took the boy to the statue and laid him carefully in one of her coils with a pillow. It was just the right size to hold him. The clone wondered if she had expected this, and sent Kakashi a frame to ask. Kakashi sent a frame back, saying, _She probably expected one of us to have the idea, since he is like Orochimaru and he's in great need of comfort. She still doesn't have the ability to read a demon's mind. Now watch over him; you don't have a body to manage, so you should be just fine without sleep. _He received a miniature frame a few seconds later, which contained little besides a blast of frustration. Kakashi sent a mini-frame of amusement back in response and buried his face in his pillow. A strange combination of sounds occurred to him as he fell asleep. _Emoji._ He didn't know why.

Kakashi dreamed of a pool of water, from which he heard voices. They were happy voices. He asked them why they were happy, and could they teach him to be happy. The voices continued to talk to each other, as if they did not hear him. Kakashi realized that _was_ their answer; their happiness came from being by themselves and not stopping to answer him. But then, who was _he_ stopping to answer? Kakashi listened hard, but he heard nobody else's voice. Fearfully, he spoke and listened to the echoes of his own voice. _Own voice. Owwn voice. Owwwwwwnnnnnwwwwwnnnnnwwwwnnnn…_ The cave turned into a resonant chamber, echoes piling on echoes. Kakashi tried to listen for the happy voices, but it was dark in the cave. He tripped and started to roll across the suddenly-tilted ground. His arms and legs were most uncooperative, and useless at stopping his fall. _Wwwwwwwnnnnnwwwwwwwnnnnnnwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…_

He rolled out of the mouth of the cave and into Kamui, where he landed flat on his stomach on top of a black rectangle. It was filled with water. Kakashi looked around and realized that someone had moved in since the last time he'd been here. The Kamui had been empty; now, it had a rudimentary hut and a black rectangular swimming pool. Kakashi didn't see anybody, though. He wondered if this was where Obito was living now. He was about to get up and ring the doorbell when the black water started to echo. _Wwwwnnnnwwwnnnwwnnn! _a happy voice chirped at him.

When he woke up, Kakashi had a strong feeling that the dream was important, so he captured the memories of it and told Orochimaru over breakfast. Orochimaru didn't have much to say. He worried some more, but the snake declined to be comforted.

Kakashi lowered his head pathetically and sighed. That left him with only one option.

Some time later, a demon laid down flat on the back of a stone goddess. He was wrapped in a protective outer body, so it was okay. He hoped. _Not my problem,_ Kakashi allowed himself to muse as he stared up at the flickering shadows on the ceiling. If he stared hard enough, they began to weave together, and he could almost fancy he saw a story playing out in them. It reminded Kakashi too strongly of his dream, so he turned over and lay on his belly. Folding his hands underneath his head for a pillow, he stared down at the little white snake.

"Mah, how are you today? Did a night of proper sleep help?"

The comatose boy was silent. Kakashi had temporarily absorbed his caretaking clone, so he knew the little snake would be fine for several more hours. He idly glanced down to see how the boy's digestion was working after breakfast. All was well, so Kakashi closed his eyes and sighed.

"You'll never believe what I found yesterday." He described what the afterlife looked like from the perspective of a demon. "Souls are very, very visible in our vision, like lights are in yours. So you can think of it as a sea of bright lights. A dazzling city, floating in the waves, glowing. It's beautiful."

The boy said nothing. Kakashi blinked away tears. "Do you know, I owe my whole life to souls? For all the power my position as a demon affords me, it all would be nothing if not for one little soul." He opened his eyes so the tears could flow freely. "My mother. She… She was the best person I've ever met. I wish you could have known her."

He coughed and held back a sob. "I wouldn't be here if she hadn't saved me the first time. The last time too - but I don't know you well enough to talk about that yet." He wiped his face on his sleeve. "Anyway, the first time she saved me, I was only a half hour old. Both of me."

The boy asked for no clarification, did not rush Kakashi past his sadness or press him to explain it. The long-ago memories and their feelings came and went, with no interruption. The boy was the perfect listener, and Kakashi was immensely grateful to him.

"I had no thoughts," he remembered aloud. "I had no memories. No personality, no goals, nothing. Everything was new to me, and I had no tools to handle it all with. So there I was, just a soul sitting in a tree, making it fall apart. I didn't know it was a tree, or that it was alive, or what I was. I had been stripped of everything.

"But then, something came, and it gave me a motivation, a purpose. It was a soul. A very sad one, despairing, I think. I can't be sure since this is all memory and I didn't know what despair was at the time." Kakashi took a moment to do some thinking on that matter.

"Anyway," he resumed a minute or three later. "The sight of it triggered an instinct in me. I was drawn to it. I latched onto some part of it, coiled myself around it, and stayed there as it kept walking. It wasn't long before it carried me back to the source of its despair. She sat down and curled around an empty home. It was perfectly intact, its form was suitable, and she laid her tail - laid me - right against it. Naturally I moved in, and I began to make the space my own."

Kakashi took a deep breath and relaxed. "That's how I came to own such a wonderful body. It's perfect." He chuckled warmly at the comatose boy. "You don't even know how perfect it is, because I haven't told you the best part. My time sense was there and functional, even if I couldn't think about what it was telling me yet. It told me my body had existed for as long as I could remember: as long as _I_ had existed. That was about a half hour, once I learned what a half hour was." Kakashi looked down at himself. He flexed his foot to one side, then the other, watching the curve of his ankle. It really was _his_ ankle. "I couldn't have asked for one more perfect."

Time passed. Kakashi looked up from himself and began to trace the boy's features with his eyes. The boy did not look very much like Orochimaru. His cheeks were round instead of lean, soft and pleasant instead of smooth and sleek. He didn't have the look of a predator about him. Kakashi studied the area around his eyes closely. He couldn't be sure, but he thought it looked like those eyes were not habitually tense. He saw what might be the beginnings of laugh lines, but no marks of anger, of sadness. There was a lightness about him which Kakashi was sure had nothing to do with his hair, but his hair certainly didn't hurt.

"What kind of soul do you have?" he whispered. "I have a soul that's tough and strong, and my body is the same. I don't know you, yet I feel that you have had the same luck. Your body fits you perfectly."

Kakashi watched the reflections of reflected firelight dance over the boy's face. He realized he had unintentionally lied. He no longer felt as if he did not know the boy. Kakashi's tail wagged in a happy way, and he took a moment to figure out what emotion he was feeling. Kakashi couldn't place it, but it felt a little familiar. It reminded him of Obito, back when they had been in the academy together. Kakashi wondered how that could possibly be. He'd felt many things toward Obito back then, but none of them seemed like they could apply here. He'd felt annoyed that Obito got angry at him after every loss, exasperated with his failure to establish any kind of friendliness with the other boy. He had wished to know what the hell was going on in Obito's head; the Uchiha had been much more of an enigma than this little snake seemed to be. Anger, exasperation, distance: none of them were anything like what he felt now for this little serpent.

But Kakashi's memories weren't all bad. He hadn't been kidding when he told Obito he admired the way he persisted, over and over again. The way he always came along had been kind of amusing. Kakashi had felt bad for him, and occasionally wished to help him. If not for that wish, he would not have gotten so exasperated when Obito refused to be helped. He had had positive feelings for the Uchiha, who had seemed much younger than himself even if they were technically the same age. Kakashi remembered sometimes catching himself thinking of Obito as "the kid" and having to remind himself that they were the same age. He'd always treated Obito as younger, though. Someone who was annoying, but in a cute way, and sometimes you felt bad and wanted to help. Like…

_Little brother._ Kakashi looked up at the boy's eyes. _He is younger, and I have to take care of him. He's going to need a lot of guidance in how the world works now. _Kakashi found that he wouldn't mind. He could already imagine taking this boy into town, showing him the way people dressed and did business, watching the amazed looks on his face. Obito looked amazed sometimes when Kakashi demonstrated something, before he remembered their rivalry and hid it with anger. They were classmates, and you weren't ever supposed to admire your classmates, only try to be better than them.

Kakashi raised his left hand and reached over to lift one of the boy's eyelids. Try as he might, he couldn't find any resemblance. The little serpent's eyes weren't anything like Obito's. Nonetheless…

"Welcome home, little brother," Kakashi said. The boy's eye looked a little less glazed, but it still did not move. Kakashi lowered his eyelid so the little serpent could get some sleep. _Somewhere in the rain, there is a warm den. You only have to find it. Or, in this case, it'll find you._

.

Later that day, Kakashi made a point to find Orochimaru and have a genuine discussion with him. He found the Snake Sannin outside the base, sitting on top of a small hill and looking over the surrounding countryside. The sun lit the tall grasses and other plants in delicious-looking hues of gold-green. Kakashi eased himself down next to Orochimaru and appreciated the view. _I'm too busy in this life, but maybe I can take up painting in another. _Kakashi surprised himself by actually considering the rest of his lives in lights other than fearful and monstrous. He pictured his next life: another body, perhaps a female one, from somewhere small and out of the way. He could travel and paint, and make a living on other people's smiles…

It felt near to medicinal to think this way. Kakashi turned to Orochimaru and said, "Thank you."

The snake looked at him past the few strands of grass that waved between them. "For what?"

Kakashi plucked a golden head off one of the strands of grass and studied it as he answered. "Being out here made me think of painting, which made me think I don't have the time, but then I remembered that I technically have all the time in the world. Before I knew it, I was thinking of the opportunities another life would hold, making plans, even. If you hadn't led me out here and tricked me into it, I wouldn't have thought that way."

A smile briefly twitched at the corners of Orochimaru's mouth before turning into one of his typical smirks. "You're welcome, Puppy."

Kakashi looked at him again and waved the grass head under Orochimaru's nose. "Just so you know, I have officially beaten you," he exclaimed proudly.

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow, and Kakashi nodded back. "Yeah," he said, taking the grass head back. "I had a nice talk with the former ghost earlier today, and at the end of it I felt close enough to call him my little brother. You missed your chance to adopt him first." He grinned.

Orochimaru turned back and studied the grassland some more, wrapping both of his arms around his legs as he did so. Kakashi settled in to wait.

He didn't have to wait long before Orochimaru spoke. "What is the point of talking to him as he is now, Puppy?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I had some worries to work through," he admitted. "He's a great listener. I hope when he recovers, he'll agree to take on a side job of professional listener. Everyone could benefit from such a thing."

Orochimaru snorted. "I don't do that," he said to Kakashi. "I prefer my actions to be for a purpose. If I enter a conversation, there had better be an exchange of information. Contemplating the stars is fine, but even then, I use that time to make plans and think about things that have happened. How the hell am I supposed to interact with him?"

Kakashi put a hand on his chin and thought. _So that's the problem: he has no idea how to interact without a purpose to guide him. Talking to the boy might help the boy organize himself, but it's unlikely to have any immediate benefit. He needs some other purpose. _"Well, you could do your thinking aloud with him, like I was. I could be there too, and you could talk to me in his presence." Kakashi was sure he could come up with more ideas, but that wasn't really important. "The important part is, I think you should spend time with him and especially speak with him. It might help him organize himself if he has company."

"That's another thing," Orochimaru said. "What makes you think I intend to adopt him as a brother?"

Kakashi blinked. "Well, you said that you had always been curious about why you are the way you are, and he's someone who is like you and might be able to answer."

"And how does that make you think I would think of him as family?"

Kakashi blinked some more. "Because we're definitely keeping him with us, you like having questions answered, and you could bond with him over it?"

Orochimaru shook his head. "How naive of you, to think that I would bond with him for those reasons alone. The same things are true of most of my subordinates, and do you imagine I bonded with them?"

"That's different," Kakashi exclaimed. "None of your subordinates were _like you_. He is like you. There is a similarity that deserves recognition!"

Orochimaru looked at him, yellow eyes glowing softly. "You've said that before. Like how you and I are the same?"

"Yes!" Kakashi was joyed that he finally understood. "Like you and I. We are similar, and because of that we have every kind of relationship I can think of. You're older than me and took care of me, you're older than me and taught me things, we've dated, we hunt together, we tease each other, I'm a substantially more powerful being who you occasionally beseech for power. You name it, we have it. And I believe for the both of us, we bothered because we saw that we were the same that day in the Forest of Death."

Orochimaru's jaw hung open. He glared at Kakashi as he sputtered before managing to say, "I do _not_ beseech you for anything."

Kakashi poorly quoted, "'_Can you use your senses to hunt down the ghost, Puppy?' 'I would love it if you could look into the past to see what changed that.' 'Let's fly.'_"

Orochimaru's face contorted in interesting ways. "It is not beseeching to make use of available resources I could easily go without!"

Kakashi giggled. "Going without is not a prime requirement; everyone does that. You sure seem desperate to look into the past, though, and you need me to use my powers to do it since you will never have any such ability yourself."

The snake hissed. "You and your technicalities!"

Kakashi continued to giggle, and punched Orochimaru lightly in the shoulder just in case he wasn't getting the hint. The snake continued to glare at him.

A breeze blew past causing the grass on Kakashi's other side to brush against his head. When he looked, Orochimaru punched him lightly in the shoulder. "Don't you look away from me," he told Kakashi in a mild tone.

Kakashi's tail continued to wag happily as it had been for the entire conversation. "I think we just established that I can do whatever I want with you," he murmured. "Including this." He took advantage of Orochimaru's relaxed posture to lie down with his head in Orochimaru's lap. The snake was too startled to think of resisting until Kakashi was already comfortable.

"See?" he gestured down at himself. "I can show my belly to you, or let you show yours to me. I can relax in your lap, or hold you in my arms. I can give you orders or follow them. I can do anything I want, depending on what parts we're acting out."

Orochimaru slowly, seemingly against his will, lowered his hand to pet Kakashi's hair. "If that's true, then the same applies to me," he reasoned.

"It does," Kakashi said. "I'm very glad it does." _Of course you can do, or be, anything you want to me. _He knew this warm feeling. It was love. Of what kind, he didn't know or care.

The petting was nice, so he closed his eyes. Orochimaru hissed softly. "You're not going to expect him to understand or be part of this, are you, Puppy?"

Kakashi pushed his head upwards into Orochimaru's wonderful hand. "No, but we're not always together like this. It would be easy for him to be part of a family, or part of a group of friends. The rest can be all ours."

Orochimaru was silent, but Kakashi noticed the movements of his fingers become much more purposeful and directed. He yipped softly as Orochimaru's fingers found and scratched one of his favorite spots. The snake took a quick indrawn breath when Kakashi started to shift around. "Fine. I will talk to him, if you want."

Kakashi sat up. "I do want." He would have preferred they continue, actually, but he didn't want to turn a completely comfortable moment into something frightening. The memory should remain untarnished.

He sent a fast-flying frame for the nearest stick, and showed Orochimaru the joys of brushing a stick against the tall grass as they walked.

.

Per Kakashi's suggestion, Orochimaru carried the blanket and settled it over the little serpent where he lay in the stone snake's coils. He even tucked it around the younger snake's body. Kakashi found this to be adorable.

"So then," he began as they sat on either side of the boy, "what do you wish to talk about?"

Orochimaru did not look away from the other snake while he sat down. That had to be a good sign. "What is your prognosis?"

Kakashi looked down at the boy's soul. His shoulders slumped. "Hmm. Not good." He closed his eyes and sighed before continuing. "At his current rate of reorganizing, he might be functional in a matter of weeks, possibly months. I'm not sure if he will ever recover all the capabilities he used to have."

Orochimaru hissed softly. "That's unfortunate. At least we're here, instead of somewhere else."

"Yeah." Kakashi told him about the responsibilities he had assigned each of his clones.

Orochimaru grinned. "How ever did I get along without a helpful demon? With your senses, we should find the answers to these mysteries in no time at all."

_Ulp._ The wolf ninja's heart began to beat fast. He rapidly considered his options. _Let's see. He told me to only tell him about problems we can actually fix, which rules this out. But is this a problem? It could just be an interesting curiosity, in which case it is something he would want to hear about. Which is it? _

"Puppy." The Snake Sannin directed a pointed gaze down at Kakashi's tail, which was showing all of his nervousness plain as day. _Ah, well. That just means the decision has been made for me. _

"I saw something else after giving the clones their orders." Kakashi produced a frame and explained how he intended to use it for communication with his dark clones. "Because of this, I took a closer look at the fabric of reality to see if I could manipulate it to send these where they need to go."

Orochimaru's tongue traced his left fang, and his eyes began to glow. "Reality itself?" He leaned forward as if to hear better, or perhaps to leap upon Kakashi and force the information from him if he stopped talking.

Kakashi swallowed and nodded. "While I was there, I found a giant tangle in the middle of reality that's catching souls on their way to the afterlife and taking pieces off of them."

The snake blinked. "What? Where did that come from?"

"That's exactly what I thought."

Kakashi gave them both some time to process this very strange thing suddenly showing up right the hell out of nowhere. Then, he described it some more. "I mean that literally - I do not know where it came from, how it formed, or how long it's been there, and I have no way to find out. It is definitely not natural and does not belong anywhere. There are mysteries even my perception is useless to solve."

Orochimaru nodded once. His eyes were hard and businesslike. "But you can see it, so you can find out more about it. How dangerous is it? How widespread? Is any more of it forming?"

"Not very dangerous, very widespread but limited in range, and I'll have to make continual observations to know," Kakashi answered. "By widespread, I mean it is impossible to avoid. However, it only occupies one route, thus limiting how many people it can actually affect. I believe only souls on their way to the afterlife can be affected by it, for now. As for danger, I saw only a very small portion of soul being torn off, like when a dog gets caught in thorns and has to lose some of its coat to pull free. It is possible that the tangle is similarly harmless. Again, for now."

"What did it do to the portion it took?"

Kakashi reached up and scratched his head. "I… I don't know." He stared down at the smooth brown scales of the stone goddess and forced himself to confront that question. "As a demon, souls are very important and interesting to me. That question frightens me."

Orochimaru stood up. He leaped over the comatose boy they had both forgotten about and crouched next to Kakashi. He took both of Kakashi's cheeks in his hand and nudged the wolf ninja's head from side to side. "You can face it, Puppy. You are a strong puppy, a brave one," he whispered. He leaned closer, so that his breath tickled Kakashi's forehead. Kakashi felt his heart slow down as he leaned forward, savoring the touch and scent. _This is a very effective interrogation tactic. I like it, too. _

"I don't know," he whispered back. "That is why it frightens me. I couldn't get close enough to see into the tangle, which is where the little soul fragment went. To answer that question, I would need to know what's inside the tangle. A portal somewhere else? Something dangerous to souls? Or, perhaps, an empty holding space where fragments of soul will accumulate until the collection grows too large and spills out." He shuddered. "I dare not think of any other, worse, scenarios."

Orochimaru continued to lean close to Kakashi's face. "We'll just have to find out then," he whispered slowly. His breath tickled. Kakashi was sure this form of interrogation was another one of those reasons why Orochimaru had the reputation he did. "What else, Puppy? I can't see it. I need you to show me with your words." His voice was breathy, smooth, and each word was stretched out.

Kakashi giggled from the flirtatiousness of that phrasing. He had no idea why it was funny, but it was. Jiraiya's books had provided him with much mirth in the past. "I will. Close your eyes."

"They are closed."

"Now, imagine yourself in a vast ocean. Incredible forces are pushing and pulling you from all directions. You feel as if you are under the influence of some great living thing."

"Amazing… Do I have any control?"

"You yourself do not, but you aren't yourself in this scene. You are me. Thanks to being me, you do have control. You can see the water around you, as if it was lightly dusted with flour. You can see the forces pushing and pulling on you. You move around, ducking and weaving, riding favorable currents wherever you want to go. It is very difficult, because the water is very thick and buzzes as if constantly animated by electricity, but you can push through it."

"Where do I - you - go?"

Kakashi reached up to hold both of the hands on his cheeks, just because he could. They were smooth like the rest of the snake's skin. "As you ride favorable currents, they begin to shake. They waver around you. Not much, but it is disturbing. You continue heading in your direction, tracing the disturbed currents. They waver more and more, throwing you aside unpredictably. Something dark looms ahead, though you can't see it clearly yet."

Orochimaru's breath was deep and shaky. _Does this story have the same effect on him as his on me? _"Suddenly, you see it all too clearly as it rushes at you through the waves. You dodge, and you dodge easily, because the waves have abruptly stopped pushing on you. They churn restlessly, moving around the obstacle, but not moving smoothly. You swim backwards to avoid the obstacle. What you just dodged was a hard spike. Looking up at the dark shape, you see that it is like a giant rock covered in the most lethal burrs you have ever seen. Every spike is huge, you know just from looking at one that it is hard and inflexible, and yet there are enough of them woven tightly enough that you will definitely be caught if you try to swim through. It's an impassable screen."

"Not impassable," Orochimaru replied. "You can make it through. But you will be caught, and the ends of the spikes are very sharp."

"And barbed. They aren't smooth spikes. They're almost crumpled, like bedsheets rammed together. Littler spikes jut off of each one, they kink unexpectedly, and some of them aren't really spike shaped at all. They will all catch on your skin and clothes, though."

Orochimaru shivered. "I am not going to approach."

"You are most certainly not," Kakashi agreed. "You back away, and feel coherent waves wash over you once more. You notice a little burst of energy passing through them. It's a ripple, coming off of other versions of you. You latch onto that signal and follow it somewhere safe, away from the enormous burred rock.

"You can open your eyes now." He opened his, and saw Orochimaru do the same. They stared into each other's eyes. It would have been romantic if Kakashi hadn't been so sure that the depth and speed of his companion's breath was from fear.

Orochimaru sat back down and collected himself. His breathing returned to normal, but Kakashi wasn't fooled. He still felt disturbance beneath the surface. "Is that what you did? Followed ripples back to your clones?" Orochimaru asked.

Kakashi nodded. "It seems I disturb reality, causing it to ripple slightly. Or maybe echo would be a better word." He tilted his head. "I dreamed of echoes last night."

_Why did I say that? _

"It could be related to your experiences," Orochimaru said. "That isn't surprising."

Kakashi scratched his head again. "Maybe. My own voice echoed back at me in a cave. I ran from the echoes, and escaped from them, until another came at me from a different source."

"A different source." Orochimaru looked at him oddly. "What other source?"

Kakashi stared back. "A dream, remember? It's all metaphor and symbolism if it has any meaning at all. In my dream, it came from a black rectangular swimming pool someone had built in the middle of the Kamui dimension."

Orochimaru snorted softly. "Yes, that is untranslateable. Even so, the idea of another source is interesting. Were your real clones all together?"

Kakashi nodded.

"Hm." Orochimaru looked aside at the younger sibling they were allegedly trying to help. "I wonder if he knows something?"

Kakashi shrugged, his eyes lifting up into happy little curves. "It's too bad that we have to wait to ask."

Orochimaru stood up. "This has been very helpful." He offered Kakashi a hand to help stand up. "Keep observing the tangle, every day at a minimum."

Kakashi nodded. "And you?"

His companion chuckled. "You seem to have everything under control here, so I will go lend my expert knowledge to that shadow clone of yours. I hope his assistant in yellow hasn't punished the charlatans yet." Orochimaru leaped down from the stone snake and began to walk away.

"Hey," Kakashi called. He leaped down as well. "I'm hoping that they aren't charlatans. Honest-to-god magic users would be of great benefit."

Orochimaru turned so Kakashi could see him shake his head. "You need to learn to control your hopes, Puppy. In my experience, that isn't likely."

"Yeah…" Kakashi looked back at the younger snake. "I expect updates if something keeps you longer than a few days."

"Naturally." Orochimaru left.


	15. Find The Source

**A/N: Shoutout to k1001e, the first reviewer for this story! I am glad you like it, and thank you. It is good to be reminded that there are other tastes than mine, and that others may enjoy this story even if it is not in accordance with my own tastes.**

.

He was alone. Orochimaru had left to check out the nearby towns, and Kakashi was alone. In this shadowy base, he would walk through empty stone halls as he cared for a comatose serpent that could not even swallow on his own yet, and who would wake up weeks from now if ever. The stone serpent would not speak to him, or if she did he would be unable to hear it. Kakashi's days would be mostly empty, and he would hear no other voice but his own.

Kakashi grinned. He was going to love it!

First, he checked the boy's vital functions. The little dark serpent was healthy, and his soul was in fine shape for one that had been completely neglected for who knows how many centuries. Kakashi knew that he needed to be thanking _somebody_ for these miracles. The boy's digestive system was the greatest concern, because that was the only part of him that Kakashi had to care for. He estimated that the boy would require "caring for" in about a half hour, so he could only look at the tangle briefly.

Briefly was more than enough time. It did not appear to be any larger. Kakashi observed several souls passing around it, and saw that they lost the same small portion the soul from yesterday had lost. He still couldn't see into the thing, and reality was still incoherent around it. Nothing had changed.

After taking care of the boy, Kakashi decided it would be good for him to get some fresh air and lie on something soft for a change, so he carried the boy outside and laid him on top of a soft blanket under the nearest stand of trees. A gentle afternoon breeze blew, and the shadows of leaves danced over the boy's face. Kakashi took a closer look, but was unable to decide if he had seen the boy's eyelid move or if it was an illusion. The air smelled sweet, and Kakashi detected a hint of incoming light rain, still hours away. He reread his copy of Makeout Paradise for the long-since-lost-count-th time, now skipping the parts where the depth of the characters' passions was described in detail. After skipping the second such passage, he remembered that he had not told the boy about his experience, and turned to do so. A leaf had fallen directly on top of the boy's nose and was refusing to be dislodged. Kakashi picked up the leaf and moved it onto the boy's forehead. The leaf blew away a second later. There was just no challenge there.

That was how that day passed.

On the second day, Kakashi decided the boy needed some visual stimulation, so he took him out to the same stand of trees, sat him up, and opened the boy's eyes. A breeze blew almost directly into the boy's face, and Kakashi froze. He wanted to see what would happen. The boy's eyelids twitched. His eyes looked like they were watering a little, or maybe it was a trick of the light. Kakashi waited as long as he dared and then reached to close the boy's eyes for him, when the kid blinked. It was quick and natural, as it should have been, and his eyes shone brightly with moisture once more.

Kakashi broke out giggling, and his tail wagged furiously. He didn't know what part of the brain the blinking reflex was located in, but he was pretty sure it wasn't the part devoted to basic bodily functions like breathing. His soul was reestablishing itself. Kakashi put a hand on his shoulder. "Welcome back, little brother."

_That's strange. It doesn't feel as good to say that as it did to think it. _Kakashi listened to the echo of his words, and it left something hollow and empty in him. The words were out of place here. They didn't feel right in his throat. Kakashi had never had a little brother before, and he wasn't riding a wave of sentimentality today, so he realized this clearly. He had never had a little brother. _I could have. _

His tail curled close to his leg for protection. Kakashi shivered. The smell of more incoming rain was marginally less pleasant now. No; it was not true that he had never had a little brother. Technically speaking, he had once had blood relations that were male and younger than he was. The first were far enough by the time he could have known them that he never had, and the second bunch had only existed for a month or so. He vaguely remembered the second bunch. There had been one with bright eyes. Those eyes had looked so dull, just before he died.

Kakashi realized salt water was dripping into his mask, and sniffled before anything worse could soak in. He had technically had little brothers. But he had never _really_ had any, because they weren't old enough to interact and bond with each other yet, and he had not had either real or technical younger brothers for a long time.

He sniffled again, pushing all of that into the past, where it belonged. But then he heard the quiet breath of the young snake sitting next to him. Didn't he also belong in the past?

Kakashi looked in his brilliant green eyes and knew that the past could not be locked away.

"Hey," he began. Then he stopped. How did one begin to talk about a subject like this? _Your existence just now reminded me of my whole family dying when I was two? _Talk about rude!

Kakashi followed the boy's unfocused gaze and saw clouds drifting quickly across the horizon. When the first clouds he had seen were gone from his view, he took a deep breath and began. "I was just thinking, and I wished to share my thoughts with you. You see, your existence just now reminded me of my entire family dying when I was two.

"Yeah…" Thinking of a way to begin had been easy. How did he continue? _They were all murdered, and I know because I was there? _Too personal!

"They were all murdered, and I know because I was there," Kakashi said. "Well, no, not murdered, exactly. That implies something… Hmm. Something human? No, that doesn't sound right… Perhaps they were murdered. No, murder is a _crime_, something to be punished for because it is not supposed to happen. This wasn't wrong, or unnatural. It just happened."

Precisely defining his terms had been just what Kakashi needed to get himself talking. "I don't remember exactly how many siblings I had," he failed to recall. "5? 4? 6? Some number near there. All I remember is that I was never apart from anyone. My life was a 24-7 feeling of being brushed, licked, snuggled, and stepped on. I must have been drenched in wolf scent from all this closeness. I have no idea how I survived."

He paused to go over his memories of the good times. "Anyway, before that night, life was perfect. I was the only naked and hairless one, but that didn't matter because I had everyone else's fur. I was as covered in fur as they were. I didn't feel any different. I imagine I was frustrated, because I was at a stage of development where I would have been running around and getting into all kinds of trouble had I been raised with humans, but that's life. The others weren't very mobile anyways, at that age. We were still being kept in a den away from the rest of the pack, so they weren't nearly grown enough to keep up with grown wolves. I'm probably overestimating how active they really were because we were all in such a confined space most of the time.

"It was a very nice den. I didn't know enough to appreciate it at the time, but I imagine the air must have been filled with the wonderful scent of pine, because our den was right beneath a pine tree." Kakashi shivered. The scent of pine had always made his heart race. "Or, it was some kind of evergreen, anyway. Did you know that evergreen sap is very explosive when struck by lightning?"

He paused to let his heart calm down. "So, as I said. Life was perfect." His heart resolutely refused to calm down. "Then there was a storm."

It was time. He couldn't avoid the bad memories forever, and although he was sure he'd forgotten something, Kakashi also knew that if he stopped talking to think of what it was he would not resume. "It was a truly tremendous storm," he told the young snake. "I would need to invent a new form of poetry to describe it, that's how tremendous this storm was. It was like having ocean waves crash over the whole forest, like being an earthworm when an earthquake splits the ground, like being in a barrel rolled down stairs. I knew what thunder was, but this was not it. This was different. I was convinced something was attacking the forest, ripping everything to shreds, and that this something was trying to kill us. A _dragon_. Made of sound and roaring and anger. That's what this was. It _hated_ the forest and every living thing in it."

_I am definitely misrepresenting this storm. But who cares? It deserves it! _Kakashi tightened his grip on the boy's shoulder and tried not to knock the comatose serpent over as he shuddered. If there had ever been _anything_ that deserved to be misrepresented, it was this. Kakashi felt all the hair on the back of his neck standing straight up. "I was scared. We were scared. And _so, so _tired. Being scared is exhausting." _Bright Eyes, lying there and shaking. _"I have no idea how Mom stood it. I have no idea how she kept being so comforting, licking and soothing us, when we couldn't even whimper anymore. I have seen human mothers perform all kinds of feats, but I have never seen one as incredible as that. I am _convinced_ she must have been a supernatural force taking wolf shape. That's the only thing that makes sense."

Kakashi knew he was misrepresenting his mother too. He had never seen or heard any indication that she was anything more than the kind of strong, loyal female wolf his father would have fallen in love with. But if there was anyone that deserved to be misrepresented, it was she. He began to sob. Once starting, never stopping was a real danger here, so Kakashi held onto the boy and used him to ground himself and stop his grief from pouring out. Now it was grief. Once his grief was used up, it would be fear, and then after that it would be more fear, because as the past few weeks had shown, he had enough fear for all his lifetimes. Kakashi managed to get himself to the point of gasping for breath without having to stun his own breathing center this time. _Good. Good. Safe. _At the third word, he choked and seized, bending low over his stomach in an attempt to press all the breath from his lungs. He somehow managed to keep the boy upright while he was at it.

Kakashi recovered his breath and sprang upright, every hair on his body standing on end and his mouth going dry as he gasped for air. _Not safe! Small. Weak. Danger. _He couldn't continue this. He needed to recover his train of thought, put things in a reasonable order. That would make them easier to deal with. _I wish I could say she fought off the thunder and that was how she died. But it wouldn't be true. There was something else - _

Uh oh. Kakashi realized he was not speaking aloud. After that night, once his father had found him and brought him to the village, Kakashi had grasped language quickly, learning to understand it by the time he turned 3, but he had not spoken until he was 4. It had been too hard, with the thunder overhead drowning everything out. He had been _small. Weak. Cold. Alone. Danger. _It was frankly a miracle that he had only taken a year and a half to start speaking. Only the knowledge that he was a demon and so much more powerful than his body had made it possible. If he hadn't been a demon, who knew what might have happened?

Kakashi remembered that he was still a demon, and no longer alone, and that his body was powerful in its own right. He was safe. Strong. Warm. Not alone. There was no danger. The strange paralysis that froze his vocal chords eased. He thought he'd gotten over muteness long ago. Apparently not.

"She was so strong," Kakashi whispered. His voice picked up and regained its substance. "She was strong enough to fight off the thunder. But that was a cruel thing. If she was strong enough to fight off a dragon, why couldn't she fight off a lesser monster?"

Kakashi shook his head. "I know. That's unfair, because it wasn't a real dragon. It was just sound. It didn't have any claws, whereas the thing that attacked had real claws, and real teeth, and was very big. It still feels like she should have been able to beat it, though. It stills feels like that thing wasn't as bad as the thunder."

He looked at the young serpent's eyes again. They were still adequately moisturized, indicating that his blinking reflex had continued to work properly. They were also unfocused. Did he hear anything Kakashi was saying? What was he speaking for? What was the point?

Kakashi's eyes overfilled with moisture. He couldn't believe that. Speaking about his mother and that night had to have a point. It was one of the most important nights of his life. If it didn't have a point, nothing did, and Kakashi had no idea how he would live at all if that was true. So speaking of it must have a purpose. Kakashi did not look at the dark serpent's eyes again.

"She heard it," he said. It was very difficult to resume talking after the pause. He must speak now, or forever stay silent. _That_ was the purpose of speaking about it! "It was something very large, and very scary, smashing bushes beneath its feet. And it was coming closer. And closer. She had to get up, had to leave us in the den and run out and try to fight, or else we would all die.

"But you have to understand, we were just pups. We couldn't fight off the thunder like she could. It was so loud, and so angry, that none of us could stand it. Even though we were all tired, we _needed_ her. We couldn't listen to her orders to stay back in the den, especially not after the tree exploded. We went after her."

Kakashi stared at the gathering clouds, seeing not them, but a different, darker gathering of clouds. "I was weak," he murmured in a hollow voice. "I don't understand it. I was so weak. I couldn't run, could hardly even walk. But that's what _saved_ me. I understand the logistics of it, but emotionally, it doesn't make sense. I understand that being so weak and not being able to run at all gave my mother enough time for her snarling to scare me back to the den. I know that my instincts were working against me, and that if I had made it to her, I would have died. But I was weaker than everyone else, so much less able to stand up to danger. Instinctually it doesn't make sense."

He shook his head. He was starting to feel dazed and drained, like he had back then. "But it did save me. I hadn't made it into the bushes yet when I heard her snarl. It was so strong, so fearsome, that it overcame the thunder for me. I crawled back under the tree.

"I heard her start to fight. I can't remember what it sounded like. I should, but I don't. All I remember is that I heard it, and I stayed away from it. Even weirder is that I _do_ remember what it sounded like when the fight stopped.

"I remember the silence. It was completely silent. No sound. I didn't even hear rain, or the thunder, or wind. I must have gone temporarily deaf."

Kakashi took his hand away from the boy and wrapped his arms around his knees. It was a little darker since the sky was filled with clouds. Kakashi stared at nothing as he recalled, "After that, I heard my siblings start screaming. It felt sharp, like a blade slicing through me, the world, and everything. I'm surprised the sound didn't turn me to dust. I remember the screaming as lasting for an eternity, but at the same time for a blip of a second. My memory around it is all warped. I don't know how long it really lasted, but it ended.

"And then I was miserable." Kakashi slumped forward over his knees. His eyes were as blank and unfocused as the boy's, and saw nothing. Not even gray. "There was nothing anymore. My whole world, everything that had kept me safe, was all gone. What else could be gone? I...I didn't know if anything was real. It was so _quiet_. Was anything real? Was I real? I knew I was going to die, but I wasn't afraid anymore. It felt like the whole world was no longer real."

He blinked. "And then the next morning, I woke up and there was a tigress with two cubs standing over me. They adopted me and I lived. My father tracked me down some months later. And now I'm here." Kakashi sat up and shook his head. "And that's the whole story."

He looked back at his silent audience. The boy's eyes were still blank, still unfocused. Kakashi nodded. _I understand completely. _He looked exactly how Kakashi felt.

Kakashi looked down at his feet, shaking his head. "I don't understand why. I must have smelled like wolf all over. Why did she take me? Why -" His voice cracked and shattered, resulting in a high-pitched squeak. Kakashi stifled the squeak and pushed out the last of his words. "Why was she there? What was a tiger doing at a wolf den?!"

Kakashi closed down all of his demon senses. For the next hour until the gentle rain began to fall, he was fully human. He did not want to see. He did not want to know. He could never, _would _never, _**ever**_, allow himself to know the answer to that question.

.

The next day, Kakashi made the purposeful, planned decision to get drunk. He was going to get drunk enough to be sloppy, unable to hold himself up or control his tongue, but not enough to experience symptoms of alcohol poisoning or pass out. He also did not want to black out. It was very important that he have a record of what he said when he was unable to control what he said.

Before beginning this project, he created two dark clones. One of them would watch over the boy, and the other would be there to listen to and record his rambling. Kakashi wasn't too sure about the precise nature of alcohol's effects on memory, so the second clone was a backup plan in case his memory failed him.

He cracked open the first bottle and sat on top of the stone serpent's head, with the recording clone sitting somewhere behind him so he could not see it. Drunken rambling was an activity best performed with someone to ramble to, after all. He took his first drink and waited for it to kick in.

"Woah." He winced as his throat burned. It was stronger than most alcohol he'd ever had. Kakashi turned and asked his clone to remember to look up how alcohol interacted with snakes. He took a second drink from the bottle. Perhaps only one bottle would be needed.

Kakashi started to feel unsteady after the third drink. This was a bad sign, since he was only sitting upright, not even standing. He should stop. He looked around for the bottle. Oh, there it was, next to his hand. He should move his hand in the opposite direction so he wouldn't knock it over. Whoops, he knocked it over. But he caught it with his darkness! Yay, alcohol did not affect how he controlled his soul! That was good, because Orochimaru would hate it if Kakashi made his base a mess while he was gone.

The plan was - was - Right, drunken rambling! This was a bad plan. Kakashi didn't get rambly when he got drunk, just the opposite actually, like yesterday when he'd gone mute again. Oh mannnnnn. This was going to be hard.

After using his soul to put the cap back on the bottle and move the bottle somewhere safe (he had no idea where that was. Well, if he'd thought it was safe once, it probably still was), Kakashi gave in to the unsteadiness and flopped onto his belly. His head hung over the end of her snout just enough for him to see the floor. This was a good position toooo…

No! Plan. Talk. Yes. Kakashi removed his arms from beneath his head so he would be too uncomfortable to fall asleep. "Whyyyyyy," he said. It was a good start.

"I'm sorry…"

What was he sorry for? God, he was being ridiculous. Kakashi's tail drooped and refused to wag, no matter how much he tried to move it. "Shorry. I'm shilly, right?" He raised his hand back to his head and clumsily patted the end of the stone serpent's snout.

"I'm trying to look afshter him." Huh? Was he talking about Orochimaru now? Why? "He's alone. I want to take him home with me. Mom would love 'im."

Kakashi stopped himself from putting his hand beneath his head. _No. Plan. Can't sleep. _"Am I good? Am I doing a good job? Will he come home? Am I good?"

She didn't answer. Why not? Was it just because he was a demon?! She could at least _try_ to talk to him. If she could move, she could talk! He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. His hands tightened into fists beneath him. "You don't even care, do you?! He goes and - and - cancels on me, and Jiraiya, and nobody likes him because sometimes he's a girl, and where were you?! Great job mothering. Great job!"

Kakashi felt so much better than he had just moments before. Anger was helping! "What were you doing when he, the other guy, other dimension, he was lost in it! The fuck? _Lost. __**Lost. **_Do - do you - lost is _bad._ Why would you let him?"

He sat back, still leaning forward with his hands holding him up. He sniffled. "Do you like me?" he asked. "'Cause if not, then I'm good for him, sho you're not. Not good."

Kakashi remembered something from sometime recent. "Hey, do you know where Obito is? He'sh my little brother, and I wantta look after him, but he got lost somewhere. He's as tall as I am, and scars, and he has this kind of rebellious look on his face, like Sasuke. Did he meet Sasuke? Oh, my god. They have so mush in common. This explains _everything._"

Kakashi fell silent, remembering everything he could remember about Obito. Obito was a silly pup. Some of the second-batch pups were dark. They probably had different dads. Obito would fit right in with them. He would be so cute, and play, and he would grow up to be so freakin' gorgeous. He was pretty. Shame Kakashi didn't know anything about him. He couldn't appreciate a pretty stranger. But if Obito hadn't gotten all lost, he wouldn't be a stranger, he'd be an adorable little puppy, and then Kakashi wouldn't be able to appreciate his prettiness. Would that be okay?

Kakashi knew that if he wasn't drunk, he could answer the question. It would be okay. But he was drunk, and he wanted someone to drunkenly make out with, and the pretty grown-up person who answered to Obito's name but wasn't anything like the clumsy puppy that Obito was might do. But he wasn't here for Kakashi to snuggle. And neither was Obito. This was terrible.

"Ow." Kakashi banged his head on the stone serpent's snout when he flopped forward again in an attempt to cuddle her head. "You're not very cuddly." But, he noticed, she was warm. "Nevermind."

He sighed, loudly and dramatically. "I'm sorry, Mom. Can I call you Mom? Do I have to marry him first? I'm not going to. I'll call you Mom." What was he thinking about again? "I'm sorry Mom. I don't want anything to happen to anybody. Mom and Dad and Sister and Obito and everyone, and now me, and I just don't want anything more bad to happen. Please."

His fingers curled again. "What is it? The wrongness, the bad things? I have to - to kill them - " Kakashi pushed himself up, but lost his balance and fell onto his side. He was like a turtle now. "It's not funny! It's not funny that my best freakin' friend has nobody to cuddle, and I want to go home, and I just want things to stop already! Stop! Shtop."

Kakashi relaxed, still on his back, accepting his fate as a turtle. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to yell… I just kinda hate everything. I want to punch everything. I want to swallow...**everything**. I'm a dragon." He _was_ a dragon. Kakashi remembered that he could be a tremendous, gigantic dragon when he had his darkness out surrounding him. He could challenge the thunder. It wouldn't survive against him, and the thing with claws would have to go away without the thunder there to command it. Yes. Yes, this could work.

"I'm gonna show Orochimaru how to fight the thunder," he decided. "When he gets back, we're gonsha be a dragon and roar at it. That should make it stop."

Kakashi felt as light as a feather, like he was floating. It felt so _good! _to know for sure that he was gonna drive away the thunder. They were strong, and they were a dragon, and everyone would be safe. He felt very peaceful and happy and warm. The stone was warm. It wasn't uncomfortable now. He started drifting off to sleep.

The door opened. Kakashi opened his eyes and started waving his arms. He was a turtle again, and he seemed to have forgotten how to roll over. It was useless. He lay back down and flopped his way to the end of her snout, far enough that his whole head could hang down. He saw an upside-down Orochimaru.

Upside-down Orochimaru did something with his mouth. It would've been a smirk if he'd been right-side up. Wait, that didn't make any sense. If he was upside-down now, he should be downside-up! Where did right or left come into this? That was confusing.

Anyway, Upside-down Orochimaru was saying something. "It is amusing to see you like this," that's what he was saying.

Kakashi smiled. "I found out how to fight it," he said.

"Fight what?"

"The thunder." Kakashi explained, "The thunder's big and scary and makes bad things happen, like Bright Eyes and Mom and fear. It's loud and a dragon. But I'm a dragon too, so I can show you - if I get my darkness, we can be a dragon, and roar back. The thunder will go away."

'Upside-down Orochimaru looked down - no, he was upside-down, so he was looking up. Wait, what? "I hope you're recording this," Upside-down Orochimaru said to somebody. "For entertainment, if nothing else."

Kakashi reached out and grabbed his shirt. It was a very nice shirt. "Obito, too. He's my little brother. I want to play with him. He's soft and fuzzy. Where is he?"

"In Heaven," Upside-down Orochimaru replied as he gently removed Kakashi's hand from his shirt.

"Oh." Kakashi thought about Heaven. "It didn't look any different. If I can sneak past, it looked like any regular reality. I'll find him."

"You can't see divinity, remember?" asked Upside-down Orochimaru. "You can't possibly tell if it's like normal reality or not."

"It looked normal," Kakashi insisted. Why was he not understanding? Kakashi could go to Heaven if he wanted, and he would! "I know howda fight the thunder now, so I will. I'll save Mom and Sister and everyone from the badness and the fear, and then I'll go visit her in Heaven and tell her I did it."

Upside-down Orochimaru leaped down - up? - and disappeared from view. Kakashi wondered what he was doing. Then Kakashi's head was lifted up and his body was pulled forward into an upright position. He sat up and blinked. Upside-down Orochimaru was downside-up now, and he had a proud smirk on his face. "Don't you dare do such a thing without me, Puppy."

Kakashi threw himself forward as best he could and hugged his snake. "C'mere. I love you. Cuddle," he commanded.

Orochimaru hugged him back reluctantly, and stayed silent for a long time. Eventually, he asked, "Ah... How much did you drink, Puppy?"

Kakashi hugged him harder. "Alcohol can't make up words. I love you."

Orochimaru was silent again.

The warmth and comforting smell was getting to Kakashi. He yawned. "I get sleepy. Good night."

"Good night, Puppy." Orochimaru sounded scared. Kakashi worried, but then he fell asleep.

.

_Kakashi was watching a movie. It was called _The Falling Rose Petals Find A Broom. _It was a romantic comedy. Kakashi held a bag of cashews, which he chewed during the movie. The theater had Smell-o-Vision, so it smelled like rose. The movie was about a dog named Rose meeting a cat, the two of them outrunning Rose's owners who turned out to be government spies, and then at the end they realized they loved each other and ate spaghetti together. Kakashi was so glad Orochimaru had gone away for a while and given him this day off. It was the best day off ever. _

_Then, as Kakashi was leaving the movie theater, he stopped to help a man who had dropped his groceries. The man didn't want the slices of cheese he had dropped on the floor, so Kakashi kept them. Suddenly, Kakashi felt an aura of blame and sadness. He looked around for the source, and saw a shadow dart out of sight._

Obito! _Kakashi ran after the shadow. It darted down alleys, across a bowling alley, under a crane. Kakashi realized he could just fly over the crane and did so. When he landed, he couldn't find the little shadow anywhere. _Obito! _he called. He was standing in a cold, frosted field. It was all flat for a large radius around. There was nobody in sight._

_Someone called out, _Aaahhh! _Kakashi ran over. Had it come from underneath the ground? He made himself a dragon's forepaw out of darkness and smashed the ground. The ground crumbled away, and Kakashi froze in horror. Beneath his very feet, he saw the entire frozen field fall in, and beneath it was death. Barbed tentacles of darkness whipped the air. He cringed away from them. There were a lot of them, and no two were the same. Some were crumpled, like bedsheets rammed together, and did not resemble tentacles at all. Kakashi saw why when two of these met and smashed together. Of course. They weren't crumpled like bedsheets. They were folded like molars! He had to get out of here._

_The someone screamed again. Kakashi suddenly saw Obito, struggling in the grip of several of the tentacles. They were tearing pieces from him. He screamed, _Kakashi, help me!

_Kakashi looked at the smashing molars. He reached into one of his pockets. There was nothing there! Kakashi searched the rest of his pockets as quickly as he could. Why did he have so many pockets, why couldn't he remember which one he had used, and why were his hands so slow and clumsy? He had to struggle to worm them into his painfully constricted pockets, one after another, just to find that this one was also empty. _

_Finally, just as Obito was nearing the giant mouth, Kakashi exclaimed _Yes! _over the sound of his hysterical sobs, and pulled out the cheese from earlier! He had also purchased rose petal perfume from the theater's marketplace. Kakashi doused the cheese in rose petal liquid and threw it into the molar-tentacles._

_The rest of the tentacles stopped moving as it chewed. Kakashi waited. With a happy rumble, the burrbeast pronounced flowers and cheese to be a delicious combination, and released Obito into Kakashi's custody as a gesture of thanks._

Wow… You should open a restaurant, _Obito said as they walked away from the barren field into the cover of trees._

_Kakashi shrugged. He would have to track down that man with the cheese again, and who knew how long that would take? _

Hey! _called an irate voice from behind them. Kakashi and Obito turned. From the waving tentacles underneath the field he had just left, Kakashi felt an aura of anger. _You can't just leave me here!

Kakashi's eyes blinked open in the darkness.

.

**A/N: This was fun.**

**As part of my Creative Writing class, we were assigned to write 1 fiction piece and 1 nonfiction piece of 8ish pages, double-spaced. Kakashi's backstory was the perfect length. I wrote it, sent it in, received feedback, and then at the end of the year we went over how to revise our works, and I chose this piece to revise. I'm glad I did - I know exactly what happened just when I need to know it. The timing gods love me.**

**And yeah... The rest of this chapter was fun.**


	16. Remember To Hope

Slowly, Kakashi worked his way out of bed. His head felt odd, and his senses were not working as they should. Kakashi wondered if this was a hangover. If so, he needed some water.

The irate cry of that voice from his dream echoed in his ears as he made his way down the long halls to the kitchen. "_You can't just leave me here!" _Whose voice was it? Who was Kakashi leaving? He was sober enough to remember that Obito was dead; he could not leave Obito anywhere anymore. But if the tangle had existed at the time of his death, then some of Obito's soul would be trapped inside it. As Kakashi poured himself a glass of water, he tried to remember what the voice had sounded like. He had not recognized the voice as Obito's.

So whose voice was it? If it wasn't a dream about leaving Obito behind, then who had he dreamed of?

Kakashi wondered if it had anything to do with his other strange dream. Obito had been in that one too, which didn't mean much since he showed up a lot in Kakashi's dreams. Kakashi would be very worried if he ever stopped appearing. But in that dream where Obito had been living in the Kamui dimension, there had been another voice. It was unaccounted for, just like now. Kakashi didn't know who that voice had belonged to either.

The classic hangover headache was starting to hit, so he stopped thinking. He drank the whole glass of water at once, hoping relief would come soon.

Someone entered the kitchen behind him. Kakashi turned to see one of his dark clones. This one walked forward and took a look at him. "You look like black pepper Hell." Kakashi had experience looking like several different kinds of Hell, so he had to differentiate. Hell was supposed to be hot, so he measured it in terms of spiciness. Black pepper was irritating, but not very spicy.

"Thank you!" he replied. "Who are you?"

The clone scratched his head. "I'm the clone you made to remember what you said while you were drunk."

Kakashi stood straight and nodded. "Ah, good." He could feel the water easing his headache already, or maybe it was the mission-like tone they were adopting. Being on a mission did wonders for one's thinking processes. "Anything of interest before I look at it?"

The clone thought. "You got angry at the stone snake for being a bad mother."

Kakashi remembered that. "Yeah, I did. Hmm...anything else?"

"You wanted to turn into a dragon and drive away the darkness."

Kakashi nodded. "I can do that, in a metaphorical sense."

"It didn't sound like you were talking metaphorically." The clone looked around. "Anyway, you also told Orochimaru you love him."

Kakashi didn't understand why that was of note. The clone went on to say, "And he looked and sounded frightened after you said it." Now that _was_ interesting. _I can't say it would be a surprise if he has intimacy issues. But I have always hoped that wouldn't apply to me. Why would it apply to me? _

The clone leaned back against a wall and put his hands into his pockets. "Hmm." He considered the ceiling. "I have a question about something that I saw."

Kakashi gestured for him to go on. "You forgot that Obito was dead," the clone began. "That's perfectly normal; we do that a lot, in dreams and such. I was going to dismiss it."

He stood up. "But why is it normal? I can't believe this never occurred to any of us before now. Why is it normal that we keep forgetting Obito's dead? We thought he was dead for many, many years. And now, we actually saw him die for real. Why do we constantly go back to thinking he's alive but lost somewhere? It's been years, and yet we haven't managed to remember that -"

"He _was_ lost," Kakashi interrupted. "He _was_ alive and lost, for all of those years. We didn't look for him, but maybe, somehow, our senses caught that even though we were deliberately trying to restrain them."

The clone sighed. "I hope so."

The headache threatened to return. Kakashi poured another glass of water to drive it away. "Anything else?"

The clone shook his head yes. "I don't know what to think." He looked back over his shoulder into the hallway. "Orochimaru was right. We can't see if Heaven is safe to go to, or not. But it did look just like the rest of reality…" He turned back. "Even so, as the sober one, I must agree with Orochimaru. It's too dangerous to try to enter Heaven and visit Mom or Obito."

_Ah, damn. He's right. _It was too dangerous. Kakashi could be destroyed, or worse, destroy Heaven. He could not risk that. No matter what kind of pain he felt, the people he loved deserved to have somewhere good to be for the rest of eternity. To destroy Heaven would be to kill them. Kakashi shivered. "Yes. I can't risk killing them." _Even if I want more than anything else to see them again. _

The clone nodded. He turned into liquid darkness and flowed through the air into Kakashi's hand. Kakashi blinked for a few seconds as he integrated this second set of memories into his own. He flushed with embarrassment as he remembered asking the stone serpent if he was doing a good job looking after Orochimaru. He was doing the best job he could, and if that wasn't enough… Well, there was nothing else to do.

Kakashi was still in the mood to be on a mission, so he went to get a status update from Orochimaru. 3 days was enough domesticity for anyone.

.

It was night, but Orochimaru was still awake. Kakashi found him interrogating the caretaking clone. "He recovered the ability to blink," the clone said. "Eyes are still unfocused, and no movement to report anywhere else."

Orochimaru hissed softly. "Patience," he counseled. It was obvious the counsel was for himself.

Kakashi cleared his throat. The clone nodded and turned to darkness, returning to his body the same way the other clone had done. Kakashi paused for a few seconds to absorb this set of memories.

Orochimaru waited. "What is it like, having multiple sets of memories?" he asked.

Kakashi smiled. "Spoken like someone who has never used Shadow Clone Jutsu."

Orochimaru smirked. "I find Earth Clones to be more suited to my needs." He leaned back against the wall at the foot of the little snake's bed, looking perfectly at ease. It would be difficult for anyone else to imagine him ever looking frightened, but Kakashi imagined it easily. All he had to do was call up the recording clone's memory.

He wasn't going to broach that subject now, or at least not directly. _Underneath the underneath. _Kakashi said, "I just received a report from my other clone. He already told you what I've spent the past three days doing. Now I wish to know, what have you been doing?"

Orochimaru chuckled. "Ah, it was _fascinating._" His eyes glowed in the low light from the torch. "Firstly, your clone's assistant in yellow had not yet punished the charlatans. He told me something about a recreation of space-time jutsu being responsible?" Kakashi nodded. "I will want to hear more later, Puppy."

The snake grinned. "At any rate, he graciously allowed me to witness and even participate in the punishment of the charlatans. What ever could have given a clone of yours the idea to fly at high speeds in a parabolic arc to create the illusion of weightlessness?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I don't know." That sounded like a really good idea, though.

"Well, he did." Orochimaru laughed evilly. "All manner of illusions assaulted them inside the chamber, and they were helpless. All they could do was flail in midair, lacking even the ability to move." His right fang glinted in the torchlight. "No less effective than anything Itachi could have thought of, I'm sure."

Kakashi shivered. "I assume they stopped their activities and took up an honest life?"

Orochimaru sounded disappointed as he said, "Your clone stopped them from committing suicide after, so they had no other choice."

"...Why do you sound disappointed?"

Orochimaru recoiled, leaning more heavily against the wall. "He stopped them from even making an attempt. Of course I would not have wanted them to kill themselves, but it would have been more entertaining if he had waited a little longer, rescued them in midair."

Kakashi shook his head. "Right. In the interest of getting away from this topic, did you visit my other clones? What were they doing?"

"I spent the nights with your shadow clone in the little inn he'd rented," Orochimaru replied. "He told me of the reports he received. There is probably enough wood on the seabed to build another half of the village, perhaps another whole one if the splinters and spars are counted. The quantity of skeletons is likewise remarkable. He confided in me that he thought we could make a profitable business out of making and selling pieces of false ivory."

Kakashi glared.

"Don't be that way, Puppy. I like your darker side." Orochimaru's eyes glinted. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."

_That is funny. Why is it funny? _Kakashi started to laugh.

Orochimaru's eyes glinted more, but he said nothing. Kakashi gave him an answer once he could breathe again. "I don't know why I found that funny."

Orochimaru hissed softly, a different, more sibilant hiss from his previous annoyed one. This was a disappointed hiss. Kakashi was getting very skilled at telling hisses apart. "A shame.

"To resume my report…" Orochimaru settled himself again. "The marks resemble smashing damage, but there are some places with what appears to be ripping damage instead. Pieces were found on one side of the bay that matched other pieces of hull on the opposite side of the bay. Have I mentioned the relatively even distribution of timber and bodies across the whole bay? If not for that, the locals would likely have to dodge a second reef made of their own materials."

_Smashing and ripping? _"Giant tentacles, perhaps?"

The snake shrugged. "A possibility. There was a distinct lack of sucker marks, though."

"Interesting." Kakashi made a mental note to look in the book for anything that matched this description. "The rock formation?"

"Normal," Orochimaru reported. "Outside and inside, underneath, above; all normal. The shadow clone did not get the chance to ask what normal meant, as this was the last report sent in before your seafaring clone followed an interesting current out into the ocean. The last report mentioned something about interesting traces in the water. No estimate was given for how long it would take him to investigate."

Kakashi shrugged. "There is no need to rush. He's made of a nonliving indestructible material, so he'll be back."

"Hopefully before we have to leave."

Kakashi shrugged again. "Even if trouble comes before he returns, he's still nonliving and indestructible. He'll be back."

Orochimaru hissed playfully. "Damn you and your skill at patience."

"I learned from the best." _Obito, who taught me that life is worth slowing down to see. _Kakashi missed him. It wasn't easy to let someone go after missing them for decades on end.

He shook his head. "So, the other clone? The one I assigned to follow traces of monsters?"

"Ah, yes." Orochimaru rubbed his chin. "He's gone AWOL. The villagers have been spreading rumors of a new monster lately, one with huge, batlike wings. Sometimes it has glowing red eyes, or sometimes they are green. It slinks through the weeds, leaves tracks in the mud, and blots out the moon. Its laugh is eerily humanlike, and sounds like it belongs to a young child."

Kakashi hesitated, before shrugging halfheartedly. "He'll...probably be back. Eventually."

"Next week at the latest," Orochimaru agreed.

Kakashi sighed. "Sounds like exactly the sort of behavior I would expect." He leaned back against the doorway himself, relaxing. "I am enjoying being away from the ninja life very much."

Then he yawned.

A deep inhale was heard from across the room.

They both froze, and looked as one towards the bed.

Orochimaru reached the head of it first, despite Kakashi's playful attempt to trip him. The snake began to chuckle. "Interesting… How very excellent…"

"Stop agonizing me and report already," Kakashi snapped excitedly.

"His eyes are twitching," Orochimaru said. "He's dreaming."

Kakashi shoved him aside and took a look. His eyes widened at the sight of the boy's soul. "Amazing," he breathed. "How…?"

"Stop agonizing me and report already, Puppy."

"His soul is coming back together faster now than it has been the past few days," Kakashi reported. "Starting with the parts of it that are in his head. Dreaming is helping him."

Orochimaru leaned over his back. "Does dreaming normally help one's soul stay together?"

Kakashi tilted his head. "Hmm. I have no idea."

"It's night now. We should find plenty of subjects to observe in the village. Let's go."

.

Kakashi and Orochimaru sat together on the tallest roof in the little town, watching the moon move in the sky. "I wonder how large it was before Madara extracted the statue from it," Kakashi wondered.

Orochimaru murmured, "Amazing how this extraction hasn't left a hole in its side, either. I don't think it was much bigger, Puppy. The statue wasn't _that_ gigantic, and the moon is very large."

"Yeah…" Kakashi leaned back for a better view. "Do you know, I never questioned what the purpose of dreams was before. But now I know: dreams help keep one's soul organized."

"I have deprived subjects of sleep before," Orochimaru said. "That explains the psychosis some of them developed."

"Why would you deprive a test subject of sleep? What kinds of experiments could that possibly get useful results for?"

"I was searching for a way to heighten their aggression even further. I was familiar with how cranky people get when they're tired, so I pushed the subjects to the limits of how tired they can get and still function effectively. It turns out that sleep deprivation is not a reliable way to make subjects more aggressive; they did get very upset, but their bodies started failing before they could muster true hatred. They moved as if drunk, among other things. Sleep deprivation is to be avoided on the battlefield."

Kakashi sighed. "I've always suspected that something like sleep deprivation could never result in anything good. Everything feels worse without sleep, no exceptions. It is the closest a normal person can get to sensing the sheer wrongness I sensed in that tangle."

"Speaking of, how is it? Your clone forgot to mention."

"He forgot because there is nothing to mention. No change."

"Damn. I was hoping something interesting had happened while I was away."

Kakashi found a loose bit of tile and threw it at him. "You've had enough for one week."

Orochimaru batted the tile away before it could hit his shoulder. "I have not. You underestimate my needs, Puppy."

"Well, if you must know, I told your little brother all about my tragic backstory," Kakashi confessed.

Orochimaru turned to look at him. "About Obito?"

Kakashi froze. "Yes. That." _Why the hell did I bring this up? _"Speaking of, I had a dream last night. It featured another unknown voice emanating from an unseen source."

Orochimaru stared at him silently for a couple seconds, just long enough for Kakashi's heart to speed up. Then he asked, "What was the source this time?" _Oh, thank the gods. Whew. _

"I should start at the beginning." Kakashi recounted the whole story of how he had chased Obito and ended up feeding the tangle, reimagined as a burrbeast with a fondness for cheese and flowers. "It happened at the very end, just before I woke up. A voice came from inside the tangle. It yelled at me, 'You can't just leave me here!' Then I opened my eyes."

A pleasant breeze blew Orochimaru's hair in a way that Kakashi enjoyed looking at. "The voice last dream was cheerful. In this one, it was angry. Why?"

Kakashi shrugged. "Everything about my dreams lately is a mystery."

Orochimaru tilted his head to the side. "It just occurred to me to wonder if this is at all related to what we learned tonight. If dreams are how the soul holds itself together, is it possible you are dreaming of a piece of yourself trying to return to you? You have said the tangle tears off small pieces of any soul that it catches."

"I haven't been caught in it," Kakashi protested. "I have never before approached the afterlife, except for that one time during Pain's invasion where I met my father, but we were only partially along the way to the afterlife that time. It wasn't close enough to get caught."

Orochimaru laced his fingers together. Under the moonlight, his skin glowed as if dusted with snow. "Alright, perhaps you have not been caught in the tangle. But that does not rule out the rest of my hypothesis. Could it be yourself? In the first dream, you were surrounded by echoes of your own voice, and the mysterious voice was an echo just like the rest."

Kakashi sighed. "I guess it could be, but…" _But how can a part of me go missing? _He had no knowledge of it ever happening, just like he had no knowledge of losing his memories. Kakashi's skin went cold. Could this missing part of his soul, if that's what it was, possess the memories and name he no longer had?

"But what?"

"But I don't want to think any more about it." Kakashi looked up at the moon and shivered. "Let's not ruin this. Please?"

.

"He's still dreaming," Kakashi observed of the little snake. "Did he keep dreaming, or did he start again? It's been hours."

Orochimaru yawned. According to the outside world, it was nearing morning. "That was not the direction I expected you to take, Puppy."

"What direction did you expect me to take?"

Orochimaru sat at the foot of the bed, looking at his "brother." "The direction I would have taken, of course." Before Kakashi could say a word, he proceeded to demonstrate what direction he would have chosen.

"Regardless of which happened, both options show he dreams a lot. How much does he dream per day? I wish you had been keeping records of this, Puppy. Does he ever sleep normally, and if so, how much of his sleep is normal and how much is dreaming? Does he always move his eyes when he dreams? Does he incorporate outside stimuli into his dreams? If so, he could be genuinely processing and remembering everything we say around him, using it to help him organize his soul, just as you thought. He might even remember what he's heard, in a dreamlike way. This suggests we should talk more around him, and about reasonably complex topics. Dreams also seem to be important for regular brain functioning, so we might need to increase the amount of nutrition he receives. I know we already made up a richer diet than usual so his soul doesn't have to do more than exist to sustain his body, but the brain is the hungriest organ. Should we expose him to more sensory stimuli, besides merely talking? A brighter environment, say? Touch?"

Kakashi held up his hands. "Slow down!" This was enough suggestions for him to consider at one time. "I would be glad if my idea really was coming true, that we really are helping him by talking. Regarding a more enriched environment, that's exactly what I have been doing, remember? Sitting outside with him, looking at the sky and fields. I don't think scrambling his senses would help; it may actually be harmful. That is enough stimulation for now. Once he starts moving his eyes, we can show him more things."

The next was personally relevant, since Kakashi was the one who had to deal with it. "Regarding nutrition, I don't think there's much more to be done there. Unless you want to give him an IV, there is a limit to what a person's diet can do. And if you give him an IV, I won't have to deal with it." He stopped talking, then realized how that sounded. "Not that I'm suggesting you give him one. It would interfere with taking him outside, and I think his condition is already good. He's strong."

Orochimaru looked up at Kakashi. "Sounds like you have an updated prognosis to give me."

Kakashi channeled darkness to his eyes and looked at the young snake's soul. "Well, the discovery that dreaming helps him means it should take a shorter time than I thought for him to recover. Only weeks to be functional, and months to recover fully. I am a lot more confident that he will recover fully or almost-fully, at least."

Orochimaru grinned. "Good." He looked into the young snake's face, tracing the boy's features with his eyes. "I've been thinking more on what you told me before I left, Puppy. You insisted that he and I have similarities which deserve recognition."

Kakashi nodded. "Could you do it, now that you have reason to think it will result in something?"

Orochimaru continued to stare. "I think I could. More relevantly, I think I might want to." He tilted his head. "How much might he understand, of what it means to be like we are? Why do I exist?" He chuckled. "I'm not some lost little lamb, of course; I've forged my own reasons to exist. All the same, I can't help but wonder if I had some to begin with."

Initially, Kakashi had trouble understanding what his companion could be referring to. _What does being a snake have to do with providing a reason to exist? It's only a way _of_ existing, not a why- _

_Or- wait. He isn't like me. He is different from me. _Kakashi felt like berating himself for having been so foolish. He'd completely forgotten! He held off on the berating though. There was more important business to attend to.

"Mah, of course," he said as if he had not forgotten for a second. "You aren't a member of my clan, so the cause of your being half-snake must be different. It might have given you something more than just being a snake. Hmm… Do you have any special abilities? Your mother is a goddess. Goddess of what?"

Orochimaru snorted. "You can't see what she is, and I don't communicate with her directly. She's stone, Puppy. How do you think I would know what she is?"

"Special abilities?" Kakashi pressed.

"Not that I know of." The words said one thing, but Kakashi saw something different. Orochimaru looked noticeably agitated. _Hmm. It could just be agitation from talking about the purpose of his existence, which he adamantly denies being concerned with. Or from talking about his family, when it's close to fact that he has issues in that area. I shouldn't be too quick to think that this means anything more than what I already know. _He still secretly hoped he was observing something astounding, the one clue that would unravel a mystery of gigantic proportions, up to the level of conspiracy. Wouldn't that be nice? A demon could dream.

"Well," Kakashi thought aloud, looking down at his adopted brother, "even if there is no greater design to your being the way you are, he still has information to share. To be a snake back in old times, when ninjutsu wasn't as widespread or powerful, must have meant something very different than being a snake means now. He could have an entirely different way of seeing himself, of understanding what he is."

"I want to understand that," Orochimaru admitted. His voice was low and slow, cautious. _Why? Why me? I guess I really am not an exception to him, after all. Should I have been so prideful as to assume I was? _

"Me too," Kakashi said, also in a low voice. He had told Orochimaru he found him fascinating, right? Right? "I find you fascinating," he said, just in case.

"Really?" Orochimaru sounded more assured, even flirtatious. _Yes! I didn't screw things up! _"How so?"

"Your eyes," Kakashi answered. "They glitter when you're interested. You don't need a tail like I have; I can see it all in your eyes."

Orochimaru's mouth twitched. A restrained smile. "Go on…"

"I like the way your hair blows in the wind. Don't ever cut it short," Kakashi ordered. "Your skin is smoother than normal, which makes it look different. In certain lighting conditions, it reflects light, and shines." Kakashi traced the line of Orochimaru's shoulders with his eyes. "Your overall build is very good to hug. And I like your hands. They're like the best version of you - careful, curious, orderly. All of those things, unstained by death and anger."

Orochimaru's mouth twitched again, but this wasn't a smile. It was a restrained yawn. A flash of anger lit up his eyes. "Damn… Why do you have to say such flattering things when I'm tired, Puppy?"

Kakashi's tail was already waving back in forth in happy position. He gave it some extra momentum. "I'll say them any time I want, and you can't stop me." He lightly nudged Orochimaru's forearm.

"After I wake up, then." Orochimaru's eyes glinted with interest, but he clearly was tired. "Remember."

Sometimes, like now, Kakashi wished he could predict himself. "I'll remember to hope."

Orochimaru took one last look at his little brother, then left the room for his own bed. Kakashi stayed with the boy. _He might be very different from Orochimaru. I hope… _What did he hope? Did he hope the boy was not, was like Orochimaru? Or did he hope the boy was different? Did he want the little snake to be like Orochimaru, or not like Orochimaru?

_I want him to be like me,_ Kakashi realized. _I want his body to match his soul._

_I want him to be at home._

.

**A/N: School's open, and the library has computers available for business. My schedule contains long blocks of open time. All this is to say, I will be worried if chapter production doesn't pick up noticeably.**

**It's been several chapters since I last watched any episodes of Naruto. I'm afraid I am not going to see anything of Princess Kaguya before the little snake wakes up. (Given what I've heard about the quality of her character, that's not much of a shame...)**

**Love you guys! Have fun! See things!**


	17. Let There Be Light

**A/N: Someone mentioned, some time ago, that there was no need to "rush" my stories. However, the actual amount of time I spend writing any one chapter is hilariously low. I need several hours overall, which is an estimate that includes both writing and thinking time, since I think as I write. Or maybe they're the same process. On a chapter like this, where one part was written in one mood and another part in a completely different mood, I need a day or so to change moods as well. **

**That is it. Everything else, all of the weeks or days that pass between publishing a new chapter, all of that is just me spending my time on things that have nothing to do with this story. There _is_ no such thing as "rushing." All increased pressure to write would do is bump this story up my priorities list so I spend more time on it and less time on the other stuff. **

**I have no idea why I feel the need to clarify how little work I put into this, especially after a delay.**

.

Time passed. Kakashi continued to observe the young snake's responses to the outside world, and was overjoyed to notice that his eyes began to twitch in response to sudden light or sound after several days. At around this same time, his body began to noticeably change. He would have periods where his heart raced and he breathed fast as if afraid, his temperature rose and fell more than it had before, and there was just more overall change in his physiology over time. Kakashi dutifully began to record body temperature, heart rate, and breathing rate every hour. Collecting the data each night before they went to sleep, he and Orochimaru worked out predictable patterns. One of these patterns was that there was more change from hour to hour at night. Using his eye movements as a sign, they also found that he dreamed more at night.

This discovery, about a week and a half after they had learned what the role of dreaming was, called for celebration. Kakashi and Orochimaru disguised themselves - Kakashi as a random nobody, Orochimaru as Tsukina - and bought desserts at the nearest market. They had an extra-fancy dinner the night after.

Kakashi raised a skewer of dango. "To recognizing night and day!"

Orochimaru raised his cup of mint tea, and they toasted.

They toasted three more times after that: once for emotions returning, once for dreams causing emotions, and the third time just for good luck. The food and drinks used to toast changed every time, with Kakashi using food and Orochimaru using drink, except for the last toast where they both used soups of different kinds. Kakashi noticed that his companion was rather quiet, even during the toasts, but he said nothing. As long as the celebration stayed happy, all was well.

The shadow clone returned to Kakashi and was reformed two times. The first was a delivery of good news: the rogue clone had returned with information about sighting some strange tracks as if nothing had ever happened, the clone in yellow was being sued by the former magic-traders (or they were trying to; nobody had much sympathy for them, and the clone was interfering with the legal proceedings), and the seafaring clone sent back an emoji of contented boredom, with a dash of excitement as if smelling something delicious far away. The shadow clone had not seen any dimensional rifts, other demons, or other terrible things. That was the good news.

Bad news: Two weeks after the discovery of dreaming, the shadow clone popped to quietly and quickly inform his original of the presence of shinobi.

Three and a half weeks post-dreaming, Orochimaru found Kakashi feeding the boy and told him not to go out and look over the fields.

"We're packing" were the actual words he used, but Kakashi understood instantly. _Do not go outside, pack our things, decide on one of the other bases, and leave at nightfall. _

"My clones?"

"Tell them all to disguise themselves, and make more trouble. Nobody will ever think they're you if they make trouble," Orochimaru said.

Kakashi nodded and sent messages to all of his clones. To the shadow clone: _Keep watching. Send frames from now on, don't pop. Spread conspiracy theories about what kind of research you're _actually_ here to do. _To the yellow clone: _You're doing well with the legal proceedings. Keep up the good work. _To the rogue clone: _Help the shadow clone with his conspiracy-mongering. Be as eccentric as possible. Keep up the good work. _And, to the seafaring clone: _***!*** _That was an emoji; Kakashi didn't make a frame from anything more than feelings of discontent, warning signs, and the feeling that he should stay as far away as possible.

Orochimaru quickly returned. "I have forgotten to ask; how has your research proceeded? The ritual and the books? We have not talked about that for a long time."

They had not. Kakashi thought it might be deliberate, as neither of them really wanted to think about what had almost happened. He sighed. "Clone 1 used what I saw of reality to take his own look at reality, see if that could explain the ritual. Reality appears to be...folded. He could not find another way into the fold. I've been brainstorming ideas sometimes, such as designing a ritual that can at least view the same space, but I have yet to learn how this one created that fold, or whether the fold already existed and it merely provided access. I am forced to admit I might have to look back in time to the people who actually used the thing."

Orochimaru glanced over at the boy. "Don't do that just yet. He had to agree to it; he must know things about how the ritual works, at least enough to be assured of his safety."

Kakashi nodded. "I was already holding back, for my own reasons. That's just going to have to wait." He rested his chin on one hand. "Regarding my book research, Clone 2 and assistants finished going through them very quickly, and I showed them how to send themselves through space to my rogue monster-hunting clone. Where do you think he got that amount of darkness from?"

The Snake Sannin narrowed his eyes. "That means you don't actually know what they learned."

"I do not," Kakashi agreed. "I don't need to. He has their memories, so he also has my teachings about how to send himself through space if he has news that he needs to send me very quickly. I've decided to trust myself."

Orochimaru hissed. "Well, it is good that you've done what you can here. I may have distracted the shinobi earlier by investigating their activities as Tsukina. It kept them away from your clones until you could tell them to disguise themselves, but in the long run that will only attract more."

"Did you see what village they were from while you, ah, distracted them?" Kakashi asked.

Orochimaru shook his head. His eyes were hard again, shining like cold yellow diamonds. Kakashi realized he hadn't seen them this hard in a while, and he was very glad for that. The Snake Sannin continued. "They were undercover, doing their best to not look like shinobi. Of course I saw right through that; the imbeciles don't know how to sit back and relax. Only a powerful shinobi can pass themselves off as a civilian, because only a powerful one can truly relax without a care. You would think any decent village head would know this, Kage or no. The fact that the village head is obviously incompetent and/or didn't have any powerful shinobi to send shows that this village is either small or has a foolish leader. That covers...every village I can think of, except for Konoha and, perhaps, Sunagakure. Good luck shortening that list."

Kakashi smiled. "Aw, it's nice to see that you get along so well with your teammates."

"I have always respected Tsunade," Orochimaru said firmly. "She's always had a good head and the best of intentions, no matter what bullshit was thrown up in her way by fate or malicious gods. Only Jiraiya ever bumbled around like an idiot."

Kakashi nodded. _Stay quiet. It is not a good idea to say anything at all when he starts talking about Jiraiya. Say as little as possible. _

"Don't worry, Puppy." Orochimaru mustered a small smirk. "I'm not about to go on an angry rant and take it out on you or some bystander. Let's just pack and get ready to go."

Kakashi smiled beneath his mask and nodded. But first, he had to finish feeding their little brother.

.

Kakashi created two stones, placing one on either end of the map. "Any ideas?" he asked.

They had planned on moving on to Orochimaru's largest base, but that was back when they were trying to figure out what to do about the ghost. There was no need for space anymore, so they could theoretically go anywhere they wanted. But where did they want to go?

Orochimaru meditated for several minutes in order to call up and organize his memories of what each of his hideouts were like. When he eventually opened his eyes, he shrugged. "None of my activities were particularly relevant to what we're doing now," he said, "so the decision is yours, Puppy. Only you can tell what will be most interesting and relevant and what will not with those senses of yours."

"Hmm." Kakashi looked at the map. "Well, thank you for giving me the decision, but I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. Let's see - have you seen any strange phenomena around before that you haven't told me about?" He glared at the snake. It was still very much _not cool _to not have told him about the ghost.

"I'm afraid not," Orochimaru replied. Kakashi could feel him being honest.

"Well, that rules out deciding on the basis of interesting things." _Except for one. _

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes. "Your tail."

_Oh, crap. _

Kakashi looked down at it and sighed. "Alright, there is one interesting thing I would like to learn more about."

"Where?"

Kakashi winced. "Ah...here."

Orochimaru stared at him, and Kakashi could not meet his eyes this time. He saw the snake glance down at his tail. Then back to his face. Then back to his tail, which was still tucked close to his leg in apprehension. Kakashi cleared his throat. "I, ah, may have learned of something interesting that I didn't tell you about."

He felt Orochimaru's eyes return to his face, and flushed. "In one of the books, there was a mention of ghost ships. Ships built of old-fashioned materials, glowing with strange light, populated by people who act unlike real, living people. They stop by sometimes. I wanted to be here to catch one."

The Snake Sannin crossed his arms. Kakashi continued. "Someone asked a 'ghost' once where the ship hailed from. The ghost said they were from up north. But there isn't anything up north - nothing except the remains of an island that exploded centuries ago. That's why the strange people are thought of as ghosts, sailing the seas without any idea that their home has been destroyed, not even aware they're dead despite glowing with ghostly light and being unconcerned with their lives. They only smile when threatened, and if you point at a patch of light they just say it's a part of the ship and act confused.

"The book classified them as benign to friendly, because they never harm anyone and the people who meet them feel good in their presence. It's actually celebrated like a festival whenever one of the mystery ships arrives in port. They don't have a home, so whenever a ship appears they get treated as though they've arrived home. I wished to wait for a mystery ship so I could meet one of these people. I also wanted to explore the sunken island with you," Kakashi finished.

Orochimaru let him stew in silence for several minutes. Alternately, it was possible he needed the time to think, but Kakashi didn't have much faith in that theory. He had even less faith in it when Orochimaru's first words were, "And you didn't tell me you were planning this?"

"I wanted it to be a surprise, like any other celebration," Kakashi claimed. _I also did not want to appear foolish or make you worry with my ideas. If they really are ghosts, that's fine, but if they are what I think they could be…_

"Any other surprises you've decided I would like without asking?"

Kakashi winced, but he would rather Orochimaru was angry than worried, especially after what had almost happened. He never wanted to see his companion, normally so calm and smart, out of his mind with fright again. "No."

Orochimaru's eyes narrowed suddenly. "What about that discussion the clones were having when we were listening outside? Magic? Overturning the world as we know it?"

"The so-called sea witches," Kakashi explained. "_If _the tales they told had been true, they had a mysterious source for their powers, which is why they supposedly had magic and other people didn't. You were right; I shouldn't have gotten my hopes so high. Not only does this supposed source not bestow magic powers, but it doesn't have any other special properties either. My shadow clone looked at it. I'd thought that it could be true, there could be something there that regular humans can't see, but there wasn't. It wasn't even a bizarre twist of reality like I was kind of hoping to see." His tail and shoulders slumped. He quietly admitted, "I didn't want to tell you there was nothing."

Orochimaru chuckled quietly. In a mild voice, he said, "I am a scientist, but more importantly, I am a shinobi. If I were either of those alone, I would be used to disappointment. We don't have to discover something world-changing every month, Puppy. The discovery of a storage ritual full of people that we will need years to recover and may, in fact, _never_ be able to do anything with is excitement enough."

Kakashi's throat tightened. "It doesn't feel real, though. Having all the time in the world, but all of it without you? It feels like nothing could ever be as real as it is now, that every other life will be false. That I have eternity, but I have to have it all now, while I still have my body and I still have you."

Orochimaru stood up, walked around the map and crouched next to Kakashi. With some awkwardness, he wrapped his arms around Kakashi's torso and buried his nose in the wolf ninja's hair. Kakashi felt a chord of tension in him, a wavering indecisiveness, so it was just as well that the snake chose not to speak. Kakashi closed his eyes and leaned in. _His scent is so strange. It's not like anything else, not even the boy's. I need to be able to look forward to this; I might fall apart if I can't even do that. I need this to be somewhere, someplace I could smell it again, even if I choose not to. _

"The next closest," Orochimaru whispered. "As long as you take guard duty in case of shinobi and we stayed packed at all times, it's safe enough."

Kakashi nodded. A ball of anxiety burned in his gut. _He's doing this all because of those mystery ships. I'm staking so much on them. What if they_ are_ just ghosts? If they are he'll never have to worry, but then what will I do? I hope so much that they aren't. _

Orochimaru released him. Kakashi sat up straight, and said nothing. They rolled up the map and finished packing, and still he said nothing. Kakashi wrapped up the boy in darkness, taking care to obscure his brilliant hair, and they took off under cover of night. Still, he said nothing.

_I can see so far in the darkness._ Practically the entire distance to the next nearest base stretched out before him under the new moon. _But even so, I don't want it. I'm tired of the darkness. _

_Let there be light. _

.

He could tell almost immediately upon landing that Orochimaru knew something was wrong. It was in the strain he could see in Orochimaru's soul. It was in the subtle mismatch in the way they communicated. It was in Orochimaru's eyes, which had not warmed back to their previous warmth. It was in the way Orochimaru cornered him once they had decided on a guard post, and said, "You haven't told me something, Puppy. Something's wrong. Tell me right now."

Kakashi scratched nervously. "You told me not to. It's one of the things you can't fix at all, that's solely up to me to deal with. Thank you for comforting me, but there is nothing else you can do."

The snake's eyes flared with anger, but he remained silent. He _had_ said that, and he hadn't been happy the last time Kakashi told him something unsolvable and terrifying. Kakashi turned to look out over the cliffs. "It's alright, though. As soon as one of those ships arrives…"

Orochimaru's hands curled into fists. "Damn," he cursed. "I didn't like hearing about your fears the last time, and I don't like not hearing about them now. Can I never be satisfied?"

"If I could satisfy you, I'd be boring," Kakashi replied. He smiled, his eyes forming happy little curves above the mask he still insisted on wearing. It wasn't like it ever needed to be washed. "I know you like being teased, just from how patient you've been already."

Orochimaru huffed. "That's just because I can stand being teased. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to wait this long? Most people marry in their twenties, but I've been waiting for you for at least that long, and I'll be waiting for longer yet. Just because I'm willing doesn't mean I like it."

Kakashi's tail drooped against his leg. "Yeah." He turned away. "I know."

Orochimaru went silent. Kakashi felt something small but hard lodge painfully in his companion's soul. _Guilt. _"Perhaps I ought to extend the same courtesy of discretion to you," the snake said.

"Perhaps you should," Kakashi agreed. He didn't like hearing about problems he couldn't solve any more than anyone else did, but especially so when those problems were so close that he could almost think he could solve them, sometimes. Could almost feel like it was his fault or like someone else thought it was his fault, sometimes.

Orochimaru left, and Kakashi settled down for guard duty, alone.

This next base was situated amongst hills and cliffs since it was a little more inland, so guard duty was almost trivial. Kakashi could see through rock if he cared, while nobody but a Hyuga could do the same, and he very much doubted there were any Byakugan users among the enemy shinobi. Orochimaru would have noticed the manners and tactics of someone from Konoha.

It was looking like being alone was going to be the hardest part of guard duty. It was one damn hard part. Kakashi was considering regretting the decision to stay nearby instead of move farther away. Would it really make such a difference in travel time? Did he really need every last second anyway?

It was lonely, moving away from home. Kakashi couldn't remember the last time he had felt this insecure of his position in life. He spent the night reminiscing about his time in Konoha. Even if it wasn't home anymore, it had once been, and he still remembered what it had felt like to have a home.

.

Though he despised it at the moment, Kakashi took advantage of his ability to see through darkness to wander the base, leaving a dark clone on duty. His justification was that only his body needed sleep, but he wasn't really planning to sleep. There was something else he hoped to find.

Using his darkness to muffle the sound, he silently pushed open the door. The room was a little cramped, so there was no great area for multiple people to stand before the stone snake goddess. _Maybe Orochimaru got tired,_ he thought. _Or maybe there was some reason why further expansion would have been a bad idea. _Either way, the room was only large enough to hold her and allow a person to fully open the door.

"Hello," Kakashi greeted. _What am I here to say? _

He didn't know.

Instead of saying anything, Kakashi walked forward and hugged her snout. The now-familiar warmth reassured him in a way that Orochimaru's hug had not. He tried to look into her, but couldn't. He sighed. _If only I could see divinity. _

Kakashi clung to her as if she was his own mother. _I suppose she's the closest thing I have. _He sniffled. _It's dangerous to think like that. I should be careful. I don't want to lose the ability to speak. _He was already doubtful. Not being able to think of anything to say was the worst sign. Physical paralysis was minor compared to the mental problems he used to have, not being able to come up with words in the first place. Kakashi gently rocked himself from side to side, all the while keeping the side of his face pressed against her warm snout.

After some time of this, he thought of something he could say. He opened his eyes and whispered, "Help me," to the closest being he had to a mother. Then he closed his eyes and resumed his slight rocking.

A sudden falling sensation alerted him to himself falling asleep, and Kakashi jerked awake. He banged his elbow as he did so. He blinked and looked around at the stone coil now holding him. He had never stopped hugging her before falling asleep.

The sleepiness came back. Kakashi smiled slightly as his eyelids drooped. _So she can hear me after all. _He lay back down and drifted off, safe in her warm stone coils.

.

_Flying after something, but never being able to reach it. Settling down for lunch on a desolate mountain peak. Finding a cottage, the same as the one in Kamui. Looking through Obito's possessions while he was out, and finding...what?_

Kakashi opened his right eye. What had he found? His heart beat fast, and it felt so _good_. He had found something very important. But what was it? The feeling faded very fast; after only a couple of seconds Kakashi no longer felt willing or able to move. He closed his eye.

_What can I do to make everything in the world better? _He pictured the world as he had seen it on the map the night before. _There is too much loss, and not enough homes. There need to be more homes. How can I create homes? _

Coherent thought faded, to be replaced by a parade of vague feelings and images that he could not remember after they had passed. Coherent thought returned suddenly in the middle of an image of Konoha paired with a feeling of home. "That's it." Kakashi opened both his eyes, and flushed. He had turned too far away from the ninja life for a while. He needed to turn back.

He wriggled his way out of the stone coils. Pleasant as they were, he had business to attend to. "Thank you," he murmured to the serpent before he left. The world seemed a much brighter place than it had before, and he had no difficulty speaking.

Kakashi encountered Orochimaru on the guard post, talking with the dark clone he had left there. He hid the object he had fetched from their packs behind his back, then stuck his hands out to the side so it would not seem as if he was hiding anything.

Orochimaru sensed movement and turned. "Did you sleep well, Puppy?" he asked coolly. They had hurt each other.

Kakashi nodded. "Mah, I couldn't have dreamed up a better mother in law. Don't worry, I've already been properly appreciative. Or, hmm - she is a goddess, so could there be special rites I would have to perform?"

Orochimaru blinked. The look of perfect openness disappeared from his face. In a more civil tone, he said, "That's good. No shinobi were sighted last night."

Kakashi looked out over the hills. They were bright in the daylight, so alive-looking that he had trouble believing this was the same place of troubles he had flown them to last night. This was a good place. How could he have missed its goodness? "I'll send a message to my shadow clone asking him to inquire about how often the mystery ships come and when the last one came. It will give away some information about his purpose for being there, but as long as the rest of his cover keeps him from being traced back to me it should be fine. I'll have a better estimate of how long we need to stay here within the hour."

Orochimaru nodded, and moved past Kakashi to leap down from the guard post. Kakashi turned as if he had just remembered something else he wanted to say. The real purpose, of course, was to prevent Orochimaru from seeing what he held. But then he had to think of something to say, and say it convincingly. _Crap._ "How is our little brother doing? Any change in the measurements?" _Nice. _

"Same variability as always," Orochimaru answered. "You missed nothing." And he leaped down and disappeared.

Kakashi wilted like a sad flower as soon as he was gone. "Mah…" _Dammit. What we said to each other last night was hurtful. And now, we can't be fully open with each other because of that. I shouldn't have said what I said. But what can I do about that now? _

The dark clone reached behind Kakashi and pulled out the old Konoha vest Orochimaru had retrieved from his box of memories, so long ago. "We forgot about this, didn't we?" he murmured.

"Yeah." Kakashi looked up at him. "You take care of it." The dark clone nodded. He placed the vest inside himself, then disappeared.

Kakashi made another dark clone to take up guard duty (_seriously, why do I have so much darkness? My darkness is like Naruto's chakra!_) and went into the base. What else could he do to make things better?

_I'll tell him about my dream,_ he decided. As luck would have it, Orochimaru was also busy pretending things were normal by making breakfast. They sat down to eat together, and Kakashi told him about the dream.

Orochimaru looked askance at Kakashi when the dream telling was done. "Obito appears often in your dreams," he noted.

Kakashi pointed with his chopsticks. "Oh, don't tell me Jiraiya doesn't feature in yours."

The snake tilted his head. "That's very different."

Kakashi disagreed. "No. Obito is the little brother I failed to save, who was lost and alone for so long and I _knew_ he was, yet I did nothing. I remember him out of pain and a hope that things could have been different. Jiraiya was the teammate you failed to connect to, who was right there for many years and should have seen you, but never did. I don't believe that the same pain and the same hope that things could have been different doesn't exist in your heart."

The veneer of civility cracked, as Kakashi had anticipated it would. Orochimaru's eyes showed more feeling in them. "Blind idiot."

Kakashi transferred a slice of meat from his own plate to the snake's. "You both missed valuable things," he said softly. "Jiraiya just doesn't realize it yet. When he does, you will both be able to understand what happened and fix it."

"I have no interest in mending whatever bond we might have had," Orochimaru snapped. Kakashi believed that to be a lie, but said nothing.

He let Orochimaru drain his cup in silence. When that was done Orochimaru wiped his mouth and suggested, "How about you transform into a bird and we fly today, Puppy?"

Kakashi blinked in surprise. "Really?"

The snake chuckled. "It's not in the nature of a ninja to stay still for too long."

"Won't a giant bird be very visible to the enemy shinobi?"

"You turned us invisible once," Orochimaru remembered.

"Yes, but that won't stop the air disturbance, or sound, or our awareness that we could be spotted at any moment."

"It almost sounds like you don't want to fly, Puppy."

"Oh, I do. But we have to be smart about it."

Orochimaru picked up the cup just to thump it down on the table between them. "Have a dark clone round up the enemy shinobi and trap them inside. Your monster clone is rogue enough to get away with it, right?"

Kakashi grinned and created a large, fairly thick frame. He found reality, shaped himself into a needle, and pierced through it. _Now we wait. _Kakashi would have liked to say that aloud, but he was too busy giggling maniacally.

A frame appeared out of nowhere in seconds. It read, _Yes. Yes. Now. Rar! _

"Let's go!" Kakashi pulled Orochimaru off the ground, where they raced each other on foot through the base. Kakashi did not borrow any of Orochimaru's slightly better knowledge of the base, so the snake was the first to leap out into the open air. His hair billowed behind him beautifully, like a shining black tide of onyx, and Kakashi felt so very happy to lose. He spread his arms and let his darkness out, swooping over Orochimaru in the form of a dark hawk. He solidified his darkness and disguised it, changing his feathers to a normal shade of black and his eyes to a piercing gold slightly darker than Orochimaru's. He turned those gold eyes, beckoning.

Orochimaru's eyes glowed back, and Kakashi felt himself beckoned. They rose into the air as one. Kakashi paid great attention to how it felt to fly in this form, and found that it was quite different from being a dragon. As a dragon, it was only a matter of spreading your wing membranes wide and adjusting them up and down to match the contours of the air. As a bird, he found himself constantly adjusting his feathers in and out. Like a fan, they slid over each other seamlessly one moment, then spread edge to edge for maximum area the next. This seamless sliding was gorgeous to feel, and Kakashi wondered why he had never flown with feathers before. He resolved to be a bird more often, and gave in to the feeling of being a bird with complete abandon.

As a bird would do, he dipped low, searching for prey. He dived for a deer which had ventured out of the edge of the forest, talons outstretched, but a sudden gust of wind at the last second adjusted his course and the deer bounded to safety. Orochimaru laughed, and Kakashi flapped his wings harder and faster in the direction of a nearby mountain so that he could roll in gravel and get this little parasite out of his feathers. There turned out to be not nearly enough gravel on any area of the mountain for a bird of this size; he would have had to fly upside down. So he squawked in outrage and headed for the trees, where the branches might do. Orochimaru abandoned his grip on Kakashi's neck and attempted to head for the tail feathers, where he might be safe.

Kakashi winced, because any real bird would feel pain and fear at one of their tail feathers being pulled like that. His disguise was convincing enough that they had both forgotten about darkness' chakra-nullifying properties. Kakashi flew up then dived down, at which point Orochimaru let go and shot up into the air above Kakashi. Kakashi the hawk smacked him with one wing, then angled beneath him so Orochimaru could catch his grip. The snake handled these movements with as much grace and fluidity as a creature of the air himself, though they were both sure he was not a flying snake. Kakashi knew then that it was _himself_ and this little dance they were doing which Orochimaru was participating in so fully, and that everything was right between them.

.

**A/N: Good to know that exclamation marks follow the same rule as question marks, but asterisks don't. I can use this in formatting things.**

**I find it interesting how I talk about eye contact so much in this story when I don't practice it myself. Perhaps it's because learning to write involves reading, and the works I've read describe eye contact. Perhaps it's because I have no trouble making eye contact with fictional characters, so I actually have paid great attention to their eyes and faces. It is interesting.**

**I have developed a great interest in feathered wings recently, where before I thought more about dragons. Kakashi will use feathers accordingly.**


	18. Memory 2

**Memory 2**

.

Guy spread out a map on the ground. "Yosh! I have seen likely places for resistance here, here, and here." He pointed at different places on the map.

Asuma grinned. "That matches with what I've overheard. Kakashi, what strategy have you thought of?"

The three of them were in their teenage years, fully grown but not fully seen as adults. It was perfect for their mission. They sat in a rented room of a tourist's hotel, pretending to be just 3 friends on a tour of the local sights. In reality, there had been recent suspicious activity in this region. The likely options were thought to be insurgence, dangerous illicit activities, and/or the involvement of foreign powers and other known enemies of Konoha. No matter what, sending 3 highly skilled shinobi who were considered to be among the rising stars of the Leaf was not overkill.

Kakashi scrutinized the map, looking bored. With a marker, he put X marks on the spots Guy had pointed to. "Hm. All 3 in or near rugged terrain, with little access to water. How are the local resources? Food, herbs?"

Guy took a closer look at the map. "Huh, I hadn't thought to notice that… But, now that you have prompted me, I didn't see much in the way of wildlife or plant life. You think these locations could have to do with resources?"

"Lack of, more like." Kakashi scratched his head. "Who would ever go there on normal business if there is nothing to gather? It's perfect for a secret location."

Asuma reached for his pack of cigarettes, then withdrew and settled his hand on his knee again. "Guy, what did you see of the terrain? Is it suitable for defense, secrecy, or attack?"

Guy shook his head. "The cliffs are disruptive, but easily accessible. I kept a discrete distance, and did not see any traps. I didn't see anything at all."

"Secrecy," Kakashi guessed. "If not a good place to defend or attack from, and you saw no signs of people, then it must be for secrecy. If there are foreign shinobi involved, they're being very cautious. More likely, something illegal is happening beneath our noses."

He did not say anything, nor show on his face the pang he felt inside. _Orochimaru…_ Such secrecy was a characteristic of the snake's laboratories, he had learned. _It's been a long time. Will I see you again? _

Asuma sighed, and Guy looked serious. Kakashi guessed they might have had a similar thought. If it was one of the Sannin, they would not be able to handle the situation alone. Their mission would be much harder and longer, because they would have to somehow find out how much surveillance Orochimaru had over the area, and do their best to call for backup without him knowing. Orochimaru was really good at disappearing. He could disappear so thoroughly and so quickly that Kakashi had yet to receive any news of how he was doing. No mission had returned with so much as a glimpse.

As much as Kakashi loathed to admit it, he secretly hoped it would be different now that he was on the team. But no, it couldn't be. Shinobi on opposite sides did not show favoritism. All that mattered were the loyalties that divided them. When Kakashi had hoped, long ago, that he would see the snake again, he had hoped for Orochimaru to return somehow. That wasn't happening.

_Even so… I want to see him again, even if it is only as an enemy._

Kakashi began to roll the map up, still looking bored. He was bored, of everything outside his own head. If the pattern established by Rin and Obito held, this might be one of the last times he would see Orochimaru. Everyone seemed to be disappearing on him. "Asuma, continue working the townspeople. There are probably spies in town disguised as townsfolk. Guy, nobody will ever suspect you of being a spy. Show up to everything interesting, and exaggerate your normal personality as much as possible."

Asuma finally pulled out a cigarette and put it in his mouth, but did not light it. "And what of you, Kakashi?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I can make my own survey of the terrain."

"Going off on your own again?" Asuma was definitely smirking around his cigarette. "No, not this time."

Guy grinned. _Uh oh. _

Asuma reached into his tool pack and pulled out a folded flyer. "We should work the townspeople and see interesting sights as a _team_. Isn't that what you always say?"

Kakashi took the flyer and unfolded it. Asuma had circled some interesting local sights. _The bastard prepared this._ They weren't on the beaten tourist path, thank the gods. Kakashi thought he could handle it.

"For one day," he said, glaring at Asuma.

Asuma smirked again and lit his cigarette.

.

The next day, Kakashi bent his neck from side to side, cracking it while Guy talked. And talked. He remembered ordering Guy to exaggerate his normal personality, but wasn't this overdoing it?

Asuma nudged him in the middle of it. "This is perfect. He's providing cover for us," the other reasonable ninja consoled. "Nobody will notice if we look away, seeming to be bored with him."

True. Kakashi sighed and stuffed his hands into his pockets, playing the part of the exasperated introvert. He didn't even have to put any effort into it. He looked around, anywhere but at the house of some famous someone-or-other that Guy was going on about. Was he trying to run a whole lecture series on local history based off a brochure?

Kakashi was personally glad for this small town that felt it had to exaggerate every somewhat notable achievement made by one of its residents. It was a tourist town, true, but not a very well visited one, which made their mission and his life much easier. This particular house was toward the edge of town and celebrated some obscure civilian achievement in the sciences. And that was all Kakashi knew about it.

There had been some other information, but he would've remembered if it was important. At least he thought he would have. Despite his real and exaggerated boredom, his heart beat faster as it had all morning. Kakashi's hands tightened into fists. _It would be better if I didn't feel this way. Everyone I try to come close to dies. _He was told that it did not have anything to do with his presence, but he could not be sure of that. It might be a side effect of being a demon. Better safe than dead. He shouldn't look around so much, shouldn't jeopardize their mission with foolish hope.

Yet, Kakashi's eyes scanned their surroundings. _I probably won't see anything. _He continued to look. _Hello? Do I have any control here? _His heart beat on. _This is technically mutiny._

Kakashi wrenched his eyes back to Guy so as to not blow his cover. Unfortunately, he already had. Asuma and Guy were staring at him. He had somehow managed to not notice Guy finishing his lecture.

"You could have said something if I was that bad!" Guy fake-pouted.

Asuma chuckled. "Something catch your eye?"

_What are my options here? _He needed an excuse. Any excuse, as long as it would get them to go back to mission mode and stop looking at him like they were worried. _Hmm, Asuma's idea isn't bad. _"I'm not sure," Kakashi replied. "I thought I might have. We could -"

Guy's fake pout dropped instantly, as did his jaw. "Ah, ah," he sputtered. He was looking in the direction Kakashi had just been staring in.

Kakashi turned, and his blood froze. His heart stopped out of fear. What he saw was horrifying. It shouldn't be happening, because it was dangerous and against every shinobi code there was and _dangerous_. Worst of all, Kakashi didn't know who it was dangerous for.

Orochimaru was walking towards them, out in the open, plain as day. He was in female form, but said form looked exactly like himself. Long, straight chestnut brown hair caught the light and shone, in exactly the same length and hairstyle Kakashi had last seen Orochimaru use. His eyes, now humanlike and green, sparkled with a predatory look that seemed familiar. He walked in a very assured way, like a force of nature, looking every bit like a Sannin. His cheeks were a little rounder and his skin a little less pale, but still immediately recognizable. And he was out in the open approaching Asuma and Guy.

Kakashi's eyes darted sideways to his teammates. _Shit. Is he trying to force a confrontation? We made preliminary plans to send a discrete call for backup this morning, but he'll know if one of us escapes to make such a call. And then he'll disappear and I'll lose my chance. _Kakashi looked back at Orochimaru and became aware of his own face for the first time. He looked horrified. He tried to relax his face.

"W - woah…" he heard Asuma whisper. Kakashi glanced sideways, this time able to focus his eyes and actually see what his eyes were pointed at. His face relaxed of its own accord. _What on earth? _

Both Asuma and Guy were staring transfixed, bot not in horror or fear. They looked hypnotized. Asuma's hand brushed his hair back self consciously, and his cigarette burned in the dirt, forgotten. Guy's mouth still hung open, and he looked simultaneously goofy and threatening in a way that Kakashi couldn't quite place. Neither would be a danger to anyone any time soon.

Kakashi looked forward before they could break out of their trances. _What is going on? Genjutsu? _Why was Kakashi not affected then? His heart leaped in a surge of hope that it _was_ different, he and Orochimaru really did not have to be separated by loyalties, they were alike and would always be able to meet and understand-

Orochimaru smirked, tossing his (her?) hair from side to side only a couple meters away from Kakashi. In no time at all, that distance was crossed, and Kakashi felt Orochimaru brush by close enough that her hair draped over his shoulder and he smelled some kind of hair product. Her hand pressed into his chest. Something crinkled. Kakashi reached up to take whatever it was just as she moved on, behind him and then out of sight before he could figure out what was happening.

_What the hell just happened?! _This was _not_ what he had imagined their reunion to be like. Kakashi's hand closed on a paper note she had pressed into his chest. Would the note explain?

"We were just graced by a _beauty_," Guy marveled.

"Y-yeah…" Asuma was red. "Kakashi…"

"You lucky dog!" Guy grinned. "What happened? What did she do?"

Asuma spotted the note Kakashi held. "A note?" He looked envious.

Guy did a double take. "A note?! This can only mean…"

_A beauty? _Kakashi's eyes widened. _They didn't recognize Orochimaru at all! How? It must have been genjutsu. _He unfolded the note and read aloud, "Swimming Duck, 3 pm."

Asuma coughed. "That's a restaurant…"

Guy looked torn. Kakashi could see him choose happiness over lament. "Yosh! A date! With such a beauty!" He threw an arm around Kakashi's shoulder. "You have great charm with women, my dearest rival!"

"Uh huh." _He wants to meet? A real, actual, not-on-the-battlefield meet? _It was more than Kakashi had ever dreamed of. He feared what it could mean. _I should make the most of what time with him I have. For this, I can be downright early. _

Asuma pulled out a cigarette to console himself with. "Obviously." He lit it. "As this is Kakashi's first date, we would not be doing our duty if we did not offer advice, particularly as I was in that restaurant yesterday."

"Of course!"

Kakashi's face resumed its former look of horror. _Flee! _He did so at once.

He took a circuitous route to an area of town not exactly opposite, but distant from their hotel. There he stopped to give his legs some rest and stop hyperventilating. _No! The last thing I need is those two getting involved! _He used all of his sensory powers to verify that his teammates were not within sensing range. _Why did he have to approach me this way? And what technique did he use on my teammates?_

Kakashi checked the sun. It was just before noon. He would have to wait. For the first time in a long time, he couldn't stand to.

.

Kakashi walked into the Swimming Duck in a state of mild chakra exhaustion from hurling nonstop blasts of Killing Intent until those two agreed not to follow him or try to spy. It took a lot to infuse his chakra with such rage, but the thought of them intruding on this meeting had given him plenty of rage to spare. He held himself upright, not showing any signs of weakness, and looked around.

A woman slapped her date across the face, looking very unhappy. She glanced to her left before getting up and storming out. Kakashi followed her gaze to Orochimaru, sitting in as isolated a booth as anyone could get. She had a menu in front of her, unopened, and sat with her arms and legs delicately crossed. Kakashi glanced around and saw that every male in the restaurant looked as hypnotized as Asuma and Guy had been. Some struggled against it, with varying levels of success. The women in the restaurant looked just as unhappy at the first. Not all of them were with anyone; was it envy?

_It could be an area of affect technique,_ he mused as he walked over to the small booth and sat across from Orochimaru. _Very unusual for a disguise, but it works. _

Orochimaru got another menu from a holder on the side of the table and gave it to him. Kakashi opened it casually as if this wasn't a tremendous and unusual situation. "Interesting technique," he murmured softly.

"Yes," Orochimaru whispered back. "I'm glad it finally worked, for once." Kakashi wanted to ask what that meant, but a group of waiters shoved one of their one forward. He struggled not to drop his pad and to stand upright before stammering out a request for their order.

Orochimaru ordered first, giving Kakashi time to look at the menu. He selected something that didn't cost too much without paying attention. The waiter scurried off, and Kakashi looked up. _Why? _he wanted to ask, but he did not speak. Let Orochimaru speak first.

"No genjutsu," she whispered. His eyebrows raised. _What the hell caused Asuma and Guy to look like that then? _

She smirked. Kakashi recognized the smirk of amusement instantly, and felt a part of him devoted to their bond warm up. "Just transformation," she whispered. "Lust and jealousy does the rest."

Kakashi blinked in lack of understanding. Orochimaru took his hand. Kakashi heard the waiters respond in outrage. Orochimaru stifled a laugh, and explained, "This form is very beautiful."

That did nothing to help him understand, but that was exactly what Guy had said. Regardless of his understanding or not, it seemed to be the reason behind the hypnosis. Kakashi nodded.

"I'm glad you don't get it, Puppy," Orochimaru said. Kakashi felt shivers race up and down his spine and all over his face. _It's been so long since anyone called me that... _

"How are you?" he asked. All the divided loyalties he had seen between them before fell away like so much ash, and they sat together as two hunters and outcasts once more.

The snake (for that _was_ a predatory look in her eyes, no matter what shape her pupil was) regarded him as she had before. Kakashi felt as if he should be able to swing his legs back and forth beneath the table like he was 8 again. "I am well."

Kakashi shook his head slightly. It felt as if no time had passed since the last time he had seen the Sannin, and he had last seen him looking distressed and angry. "I can't believe that."

"Well enough." She tucked her hair back behind one ear in a distinctly feminine way. "Don't worry. If I have my dating norms correct, and I am sure I do, we have the whole afternoon."

Kakashi squinted, trying to block out the tucked hair. With that feature out of the way, he could see Orochimaru's normal form beneath the transformation. He preferred that form. "In this look?"

"Of course." Orochimaru stopped what she was doing and peered closely. "Why do you ask?"

"Mah, mah, it's not bad," he said. "But I do prefer your usual look."

Something glittered in Orochimaru's eyes as they widened. "Really?"

"Of course. I prefer black to brown, and _like me_ to, well, not…"

She smiled, again in a distinctly feminine way. "You just earned yourself a reward."

Kakashi looked around for a waiter. Their food should have arrived by now. The waiters again sent out one of their own. This one did a better job of walking steadily, which was good as each plate was piled high. Once he left, Kakashi and Orochimaru each took a pair of chopsticks, bowed as much as the table allowed them to, and began.

Kakashi wasn't a particular fan of what he had ordered. Orochimaru looked at it enviously, and reached out with her chopsticks. She replied to Kakashi's offended look with, "I can do whatever I want in this form," before swallowing a mouthful of what was rightfully his food.

_Why do I care? _Kakashi realized he didn't. His offended look was a pantomime, a pretense. _I shouldn't have any pretense here. Not now. Go away! _He reached again for the feeling of there being nobody else in the whole world besides them, and stole some of Orochimaru's food back. They were alike. It was really _their_ food. He had a right to it. Orochimaru's eyes sparkled mischievously.

Kakashi sighed. "Obito."

Orochimaru tilted her head. "I heard. Then Rin. Just when you were finally getting somewhere with them, too."

Kakashi nodded. "Will you also disappear?"

"Not if I can help it, and not if you can help it either." She sipped at a little cup of refreshment someone had brought out. "We both know there are things we can't help, but it's best not to think of those. Deny them. They don't matter."

"They _do_," he argued back. "I can't, won't deny anything."

"I can't imagine why," she said seriously. She drained her cup and set it down delicately. Kakashi tried to ignore the repeated displays of femininity as best he could. "Just so you know, my name is Tsukina."

_This is a whole false identity, then? _"I take it you have business near here?"

"Yes." She challenged him with her eyes. "But I won't tell you where, and you will not find it."

Kakashi nodded. "You disappear better than anyone I know. I haven't heard a single word about you for a long time."

Orochimaru shrugged. "Well I wasn't about to send you a letter." Though her words sounded unapologetic, her low tone did not. Kakashi dipped his head in understanding.

_Underneath the underneath. _"This food is better than the restaurants back home." _I miss you._

"The staff here are such an improvement," she replied. _She doesn't miss being home at all. I will never get him to return to the village. _

Kakashi sipped at his own drink. "I wish they could come to work back home." _I wish we didn't have to be apart like this._

Orochimaru shook her head. "Nah, the low standards would drag them down." _Konoha will never be home to him again. _

Kakashi set down his glass heavily. "I'm sorry."

"For what, Puppy?"

"Jiraiya."

Just like that, the air between them chilled. Orochimaru turned very still, and sat very quietly. Kakashi poked at his food. They said nothing.

_Damn, why did I have to say his name? _Kakashi kept his head bowed. He kept his head bowed as Orochimaru sighed. He kept his head bowed as she once again folded her fingers together calmly. He kept his head bowed in apology for saying such a hurtful word until she finally said, "Puppy."

He looked. Orochimaru was looking at him in a way he did not recognize. He felt her gaze drift across his shoulders, chest and cheek. _What is she assessing me for? _

She reached forward and cupped his cheek in one hand, partially but not completely answering his question. "You did nothing wrong. He did. But, perhaps, you can help me make it right."

Kakashi's brow wrinkled in confusion. _Make what right? It's as if she speaks in code. _

They returned to safer topics, speaking of her business (It was good), his business (no trouble there), the surrounding area (pristine and untouched; in other words, not the site of a battle), and reassuring each other over and over again that there was no blame to be had in either of them. It lightened Kakashi's heart to hear such words. He knew he wouldn't believe it a day from now, but he could believe it now, and savored it.

Eventually, the afternoon wore off, and they felt the need to get up and leave. Kakashi had forgotten about the code-talking by this time, and about his promised reward. He felt only anxiety as Orochimaru steered him out the back. _The back? Do we have someone we need to avoid? I told those two -_

She grabbed him by the neck and kissed him before he could finish the thought. Kakashi froze. _Huh? _The warmth of her lips pressing into his was alien and strange. Not unpleasant (it was warmth after all); just strange. He closed his eyes and let her continue, and only realized when she tightened her grip that he was supposed to be responding. _What do I do? I don't know how to kiss. _He pushed his lips forward, but it felt awkward and unnatural. Orochimaru broke the kiss and started chuckling.

"The price I have to pay for decent company, I suppose." She continued to laugh. Kakashi scratched his head. _Yes, I was bad, but there's no need to make so much out of it._

Orochimaru stepped up and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, facing him nearly nose to nose. Kakashi waited for her to say something more, because it was obvious she had more to say. (After several years and being told that a woman was flirting with him, he would remember this occasion and realize then that he hadn't once questioned why Orochimaru was acting this way. He would wonder why, but would never have an answer.)

"This is good, Puppy." Her eyes bored into his, glittering like gemstones.

"Yes," he agreed.

"Remind me which hotel you're staying at?"

She came over later that night, sending someone ahead of her so that Asuma and Guy would clear the room. Guy winked dramatically before departing. Kakashi rolled his eyes and prayed for everyone to just shut up about him already. When she reached his room, she reminded him in a whisper right next to his ear that he had better address her as Tsukina. Kakashi promised he would.

Tsukina stayed for about an hour, relating small stories of encounters she had had in forests and company she had kept. Kakashi was sure that it was all heavily redacted, but he enjoyed the stories and shared some heavily redacted tales of his own. After an hour, she kissed him on the cheek and left, promising to "cross his path someday."

.

Tsukina was very good at keeping her promises. It was rare - they would meet once, maybe twice a year. He would catch infrequent glimpses, or hear about her from people with glazed or angry eyes. The original mission was counted as a failure, but Kakashi never thought of it as such. Before, he had not known anything about his companion's activities. Now, he could almost feel as he did when they were hunting together separately, when he sensed the snake's presence and moved in concert as if psychically linked. This was the way he moved from mission to mission now.

One of those missions happened to contain Asuma, who realized that Kakashi was still in touch with her. When they returned, Asuma spread word that Kakashi had a secret and mysterious girlfriend. Kakashi was actually grateful for this as it got matchmakers to stop practicing their art on him.

Kakashi did not improve much at kissing, but he did train himself to reflexively respond in some simple ways that wouldn't completely kill any possible mood. That remained his least favorite part of meeting her, and Tsukina quickly stopped offering to help him practice. They would simply sit with his arm around her shoulders, offering grooming tips and feeling the wind in their hair. They would look at the moon, and she would make jokes about howling at it. Kakashi would smile.

He couldn't remember the last time he had smiled. It had not been possible before. But now, with Orochimaru transformed and at his side, he could feel as if there was something to smile for. With her by his side, he could feel like there was hope, and that he might not be abandoned.

Sometimes, he tried to forget he was a demon with her. Sometimes, it worked.

.

**A/N: I wrote this over a week ago. I don't know why it's taken me so long to actually post it. It's like my desire to share has dropped off, even as I continue writing. I've just been trying to remind myself to get this chapter out of Google Docs already so I can have space.**

**I thought it would take longer for the Memories to be revealed. Perhaps there will be more than 3 Memories. I like them. The next one will be atypical, not like the first two. _Disclaimer: This notice applies to my current plans only. Plans may change._**

**Happy Fall.**


	19. Dive Into The Darkness

Kakashi closed his eyes and reached out to scan the environment. "Nothing," he found.

"Excellent." Orochimaru lay the boy down gently in the space they were using as a guard post. Since things were much improved between them, Kakashi had suggested family time.

"Do you think I should take him flying sometimes?" Kakashi wondered. "I haven't done so, except to move him here. He might like it."

Orochimaru shook his head. "Not until we move. No clone of yours can get away with capturing shinobi that many times."

Kakashi lowered his head. "Mah, that's right. Well, I can wait."

Orochimaru sat and made himself comfortable. "Speaking of your clones, how are they adjusting to their new roles?"

Kakashi sent out requests for news. When he received reports a couple seconds later, he grinned. "Oh, no trouble. No trouble at all." He opened his eyes, allowing them to sparkle with a mischievous look. "No _bad_ trouble, anyway."

Orochimaru hissed admiringly. "You look truly demonic with that look in your eyes, Puppy. You could have been an absolute horror."

Kakashi closed his eyes in happy little curves, still smiling. "I was raised differently."

"Fortunately for the rest of us."

Kakashi nodded. _My life is a string of good fortune, as much as it may seem otherwise when I'm depressed. What would I have become if it hadn't been?_

"Puppy," Orochimaru said softly. "I've thought more about what you said last night." He crossed his arms. "The surprise is out, so there's no need to wait. I didn't appreciate your idea being kept from me, but I would like to explore the sunken island."

Kakashi raised his tail. _All right! _"Of course. Now, how do you want to get there? You're right - I can't ask one of my clones to kidnap the foreign shinobi every time we wish to fly somewhere."

"I know a way," Orochimaru said lightly. Kakashi's tail started to wag.

.

Several hours later and many kilometers to the northwest, they were far from the bay, far from any mysteries or superstitions that would hold back the development of a bustling town, and meandering their way through said town towards the docks.

Kakashi was calling himself Mako now, and had dark brown hair and glasses. He also had his hand entwined with Tsukina's, which might get him jumped at some point. Tsukina laughed at his concern. "Relax," she whispered. "We're going to disappear anyway."

"Won't that be suspicious since everyone is looking at you?"

"Of course not. I've been disappearing in this form for a long time; nobody thinks it odd that a women who attracts as much attention as I do would develop the ability to disappear from the public eye. Everyone has to have privacy."

Kakashi sighed. "I still do not understand how this works. By attracting so much attention, you avoid detection. How is it possible?"

Tsukina shot him a glare. "You have your clones causing as much trouble as they possibly can. It's the same method."

"My clones are disguised so they don't look exactly like me, though," Kakashi whispered.

Tsukina chuckled. "I am still happy you don't understand it."

Kakashi gave up. _He is unbelievable. It has always been hard to get a straight answer out of him in this form. _Instead, Kakashi looked around and pretended to be looking at products for sale, all the while making his way closer to the docks.

At a tug of her hand, he slipped after Tsukina down a narrow alley, so suddenly and smoothly that it was possible an onlooker who had been directly watching them might not know where they had gone. _This movement… It is only running, but it feels different. I feel different. _They turned at bizarre angles, making their way up, to the side, and through a winding course of buildings and other obstacles. Kakashi had the peculiar feeling of not running so much as sliding.

Finally, they transformed into ordinary animals and strode out onto the docks, where nobody noticed them and they slipped into the water as soundlessly as otters. Once in relatively deep water, Kakashi spread a thin layer of transparent darkness out to capture a bubble of air, and wrapped them both in it.

"Diving Spider no Jutsu," Orochimaru murmured. They did not bother with any disguise once coming out of the transformation.

Kakashi shrugged. "There are no boundaries to my darkness. Hand signs make jutsu more structured, more different and distinct, in a way that I'm probably failing to capture. My darkness is not like that. I can't find any differences to tell one thing from the other. I can't give any use of it a name."

"Or you don't want to," Orochimaru replied.

"That too. It's a part of me; why should I have to give it a name? I don't have a special name for moving my arm."

"Flexing. Twisting. Grabbing," Orochimaru listed. "But I suppose you're right. All are much less precise than the names of ninjutsus."

Kakashi's heart took a leap. "You know, I don't have to name it when I walk on water or up a tree. What if chakra was like that in his time? What if it didn't need a name?"

Orochimaru was silent for a while. Eventually, he murmured, "Interesting idea. But it should wait until we can ask him."

Kakashi judged them to be far enough out for it to be safe to form a ray-shape out of the air bubble he had captured. "You and your interesting things. I had no trouble waiting before you showed up." Kakashi remembered those dark times. "Everything seemed very much the same. I didn't itch to approach anything. Now there are so many things I have to be in agony waiting for. I can't believe I let you do this to me."

"I have the same trouble," Orochimaru shot back. "You and your mysteries."

"Yours," Kakashi countered. _After all this time, I still don't know why you are like me. Will I ever learn? _

The bubble-ray surfaced to take on fresh air, and Kakashi looked back. The coastline was out of sight, except as a vague blurry line. "Alright, now for the interesting part," he told Orochimaru, and the ray dived.

Deeper and deeper they went, into darkness so extreme that Kakashi soon lost sight of his companion's white skin. The darkness of the bubble refused to bend at all, so outside pressure did not reach them, but Kakashi was still nervous about the increasing pressure he could feel. He checked on Orochimaru every two seconds to be sure it did not reach them inside.

Orochimaru's eyes lit up, literally, in the brief flare of a bioluminescent fish swimming by. Kakashi relaxed, whispering, "Whoa…" Did such a shade of blue-white exist in the world above?

By the flashes and glows of fish, minuscule crustaceans, and whirling clouds of water, they saw strange formations on the sea floor, and even stranger creatures. A brief flash illuminated something too briefly for either of them to see, but Kakashi thought it looked like a tremendous fan of coral, hundreds of meters below where coral should grow. He checked and saw it to be a colony of tube-shaped worms, instead. _Amazing._ They appeared to be flicking parts of themselves out into the water near a plume of thick smoke that was invisible in the dark.

Kakashi allowed himself full vision in the darkness, which he had been repressing earlier. The ocean floor suddenly became more visible and more clearly detailed than anything Kakashi had ever seen, even on the night when he had first released his senses. "Oh my gods," he could not help exclaiming. "That smoke! It's like we're surrounded by small volcanoes."

"Is that what these piles are?" Orochimaru asked, squinting.

"Yeah," Kakashi nodded. "Well, no, not that one." He sensed Orochimaru's attention on a particularly bright pile of creatures. "That's a dead whale."

"That explains why it would be brighter than everything else," Orochimaru mused. A relatively large fish with big teeth captured a smaller fish when the smaller fish swam directly up to the light dangling from its forehead. "Hah, there are probably fish down here that have such a light directly in their mouths to spare them the extra step."

"Or not," Kakashi said, in a tone of voice that indicated Orochimaru should not ask what he meant. Kakashi steered them away from the giant insect with a shudder. _Not even an Aburame would go near that! _"There are rocks up ahead, and the slope changes. I think we're nearing the island."

The slope did indeed rise gently. The light-makers disappeared as the water became shallow enough to possess faint traces of sunlight, and they began to see red algae and other mid-depth organisms. Kakashi was checking the temperature of the water to see if this was a warm shallow sea when, out of the blue, something dark loomed.

Kakashi easily dodged the largest and strangest plume of rock he had ever seen. Naturally, he took them back for a closer look. Orochimaru had to squint to see, but even he could make out an oddly-shaped rock formation. "What is that, Puppy?"

"Lava," Kakashi whispered. "It's round because that's how it comes out, before it cools down and turns solid." The bubble ray turned as Kakashi did, taking in their surroundings. "We're here."

Kakashi rose to take more fresh air, before descending for a thorough exploration. Orochimaru hissed in displeasure. "The light is not nearly enough. I can see evidence of an explosion, but not much more."

Kakashi tried to make up for this by describing everything they passed by in vivid language - the scattered pieces of rock, the fractured bedrock they passed over, the petrified remains of blasted trees. As they moved to the outside of the ruins, Kakashi found more and more petrified wood to describe. It must have been close enough to the edge of the island to slide into the sea and thereby avoid being burned up.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, bringing the ray to a sudden stop. "There - a mast! It's long, round, smooth. It must be."

"What else?" Orochimaru urged as they approached for a better look.

"Ah… Not much. Those tatters might have been cloth once. Not now. Sorry," Kakashi apologized.

"What else? Living places?" Orochimaru asked.

They drifted around the shallow sea for a long time, but did not find anything very substantial. Splinters and petrified wood abounded, the mast being the largest of them all. Kakashi guessed that human homes would not have crumbled into the ocean, so they would have all burned. All in all, the goal of their little voyage turned out to be a huge letdown. "This is better," Kakashi said in reference to the plume of black smoke they passed on their way out. Orochimaru agreed.

.

Night had long since fallen when they returned. Kakashi yawned, but dutifully kept his senses extended. "Shinobi to the east," he reported. "Not close. One of my clones is keeping an eye on them." Orochimaru did not respond. They were both tired.

The caretaking clone looked Kakashi significantly in the eyes before allowing himself to be reabsorbed. Kakashi understood why once he had the clone's memories. The guard clone had returned with the vest.

The guard clone snuck in quietly and placed the vest behind Kakashi's back, then rejoined him, so stealthily that Orochimaru did not notice. Kakashi walked up with both of his hands behind his back holding the vest. "Hey."

Orochimaru glanced up from his measurements, then down at Kakashi's hands. Kakashi took them out from behind his back and held out the vest, now solid black. "Surprise!"

The snake's eyes widened. "I had almost forgotten…" he said as he took it. Kakashi grinned and watched as Orochimaru put it on. _It really does do nice things for his shoulders! _Once it was on, Kakashi embraced him in a hug.

Orochimaru held him back, but hesitantly. _Huh? What's wrong? There shouldn't be anything wrong after such a good day. _Kakashi glanced down at Orochimaru's soul and saw conflict there. It looked very alluring; Kakashi thought it looked spicy, though he had no idea how he could tell that. At any rate, it told him what was wrong. "Go on," he encouraged.

Orochimaru squeezed him tightly, gasping as he did so. His heartbeat took a noticeable leap. "Do you really mean that, Puppy?" he asked.

Kakashi considered carefully. _Do I want him to do anything? He does look better in the vest… _

He nodded. "I do. But only if you keep the vest on. You look and feel good in it."

"_More _clothing. What an odd fetish," Orochimaru mused aloud as he ran his fingers through Kakashi's hair.

"You look good in it," Kakashi said as he nuzzled back. "I did say my mind needed to be on board."

Orochimaru stepped back as if he had been branded with red-hot iron. He glanced down at the younger snake with dilated pupils. "He'll be fine." He then grabbed Kakashi's vest and forced him from the room. Kakashi stumbled to keep up.

.

Morning found Kakashi soundly asleep. His tail was tucked between his legs, his paws were curled restfully, he was warm, and everything was quiet and still. Orochimaru's arm wrapped around his belly, heavy and soothing. He did not wake up until Orochimaru moved said arm.

"Mmm." _Soft. Mmph? Ssssss. Aaaavvvv. Hmm. _His thoughts were still indistinct for a long time after he technically was no longer sleeping. Kakashi finally reached consciousness when Orochimaru yawned. "Mm?" He forced an eyelid open.

"Good morning," Orochimaru whispered.

"Mm." Kakashi closed his eyes again. _Wanna sleep and be lazy. _

Orochimaru took his arm from around Kakashi's waist and got up. "I'll catch breakfast." Kakashi missed him, but not enough to move. He went back to sleep.

_Love you. Feathers. My back. Naruto? Pups. _Kakashi's eyelids twitched. _Love you._

"_Sister?"_

_Sister pawed at his nose. He had to get up, before Orochimaru was done catching breakfast. Kakashi struggled to get up, but found all of his limbs paralyzed. He could not move._

_But then, as if by magic, he did. He lifted an arm and slid the covers down. Following Sister's lead, he walked down the hallway, brushing against the wall as he went. He lifted a hand to touch a doorway, and - _

Oh. He hadn't actually gotten up. He was still in bed. But he had to get up, before Orochimaru came back. Kakashi tried to get up.

_With much effort, he succeeded in wriggling his way out from under the covers. Stumbling, Kakashi made his way to the door, and walked out. He walked down the hall -_

Oh. No. He was still in bed. Kakashi tried to get up again. He still had to get out of bed before Orochimaru came back.

"_Sensei!" Naruto yelled as he jumped up and down on the bed next to Kakashi. Kakashi groaned and buried his head beneath a pillow. Maybe it wasn't so important that he get up after all. Orochimaru could wait._

_Naruto got down from the bed and ran away. Where was he? He had to find his way out of here, and fast! Enemies would come around the corner any minute now. Naruto tried to remember the map Yamato had told him to memorize before coming down here, but he could not. Every turn he thought he remembered led him to a dead end. He ran faster and faster, more and more frantically, trying to find out where he was by sheer repetition of the paths. The paths changed every time he passed through them, so he could not. _

_Naruto fell down, panting. He was so tired. He was going to be caught and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He cowered on the ground with his arms tucked over his head, trying to at least not see it._

_A bird squawked. It was a messenger hawk! Naruto uncurled and ran for the messenger hawk, which was perched on the sill of an open window. It squawked at him and flew away. Naruto tried to fly after it, but ended up hanging off the sill with half of his body in either direction. He flailed forward, finally managing to fall._

_Kakashi dusted himself off. Where was the bird from? He couldn't remember what color it was. He was just going to have to consult the mission notes and find out. But where were the notes? Minato sensei had promised to post them on a tree, but which tree? Kakashi couldn't remember if it was north or south of the base. Which side of the base was he on, anyway?_

_Kakashi headed north and remembered that the notes were posted to the south, just in time to fall off the northern cliff he had been specifically warned not to go near. There were rocks at the bottom. He closed his eyes and braced for impact, but instead fell through the rocks into an underground chamber where Madara and Obito stopped talking about whatever they had been talking about and stared at him._

"_How did you get here?! And why'd you take so long?" Obito angrily demanded to know. His hair was long, hanging to his shoulders. Madara's was much longer, hanging nearly to the bottom of his red battle armor, and he stared at Kakashi disapprovingly. They looked like father and son. _

_Kakashi realized he was intruding on valued family time. "Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -"_

"_Go away!" Obito shouted, in tears. "Don't you know how long I've been living with my granny for? I never even knew my parents. You don't have any right to be here."_

_That was right; Kakashi didn't. He scrambled backward. "Okay, I'll -" He tried to get to his feet, but fell. "Sorry!" Over and over again, he tried to leave, but kept falling down. His ears burned. He was so clumsy._

_Eventually, he gave up and lay down, wishing to just disappear from embarrassment. To his surprise, he did. He was now floating in a void. Where was he?_

_He realized where he was when his limbs began to curl up against his will. Kakashi struggled, but could no longer move them. His soul wound up tightly into a little ball, ready to be retrieved from storage at a moment's notice. A thin red string wrapped around Kakashi's throat, holding him prisoner._

"Ahem." Orochimaru cleared his throat. Kakashi remembered. _That's why I had to get up before he returned! If I didn't, I would get trapped here. It's too late, I'm trapped -_

"Puppy."

Kakashi's eyes flew open. He saw a perfectly normal room around himself, and Orochimaru standing over him with 2 dead birds, looking amused. _What the hell just happened? I was chasing after...something. Why don't I remember? Wait, was it a dream?_

Orochimaru poked him on the forehead to make sure he was awake. Kakashi's eyes opened again, and he wrestled himself upright. The movement made his head spin. He accepted a bird gratefully.

"Are you sure it was as weak as you implied?" Orochimaru asked. "You seem so tired this morning."

Kakashi wondered what he was talking about. Then he remembered. _Oh, yeah, he was wearing the vest. It looked nice. _Kakashi blushed. "I'm sure."

Orochimaru wrapped his arms around Kakashi's midsection. "We can always try again," he murmured into Kakashi's shoulder. Kakashi closed his eyes and leaned back into the embrace, not saying aloud that he did not want to. He couldn't imagine how he had found it interesting the night before. _I am never going to lose my virginity at this rate, and I can't imagine why I would ever want to, so that is okay._

The lack of reaction was enough. Orochimaru sighed and leaned back. "Or I can take last night as the lucky surprise it was and leave it like that." Kakashi nodded in agreement.

"I was just dreaming about Obito," he said, changing the subject. "Again." He took a bite, snapping the bird's spine and breastbone.

Orochimaru stopped before he could swallow his own meal. "I don't dream about Jiraiya this much. This is beyond the normal, Puppy."

Kakashi swallowed, spat out the remaining downy feathers that had resisted plucking, and shrugged. "No, it's very normal for me."

Orochimaru stayed silent, saying nothing before or after swallowing his catch whole. Kakashi wondered if that practice did any damage to his intestines. He did not ask. There were far more important questions to ask. "So, then, what do you dream about?" _I've never asked. _

"Odd things." The snake looked away. "They really are meaningless."

Kakashi's tail raised and started to wave back and forth. _That means…_ "I can't believe that," he insisted. "If it seems meaningless, then it must be the most meaningful of all." _What is he hiding? _

Orochimaru chuckled, shaking his head. "Not so. I take the bodies of others, remember? Presumably, some of their influence remains. If I dream about being other people, that's the reason. Nothing more."

Kakashi leaned closer. "What kind of other people?"

"Generally female," Orochimaru answered. "On the rare occasions that my attention is drawn to it."

Kakashi leaned even closer. "Go on…"

The Sannin smirked. "If you insist…"

"I do insist."

"Very well, then." Orochimaru closed his beautiful snake eyes, but only for a moment, which Kakashi was glad for. "I tend to be in a forest or in town, although dreams where I'm in a rocky desert are not uncommon either. You said once that you expected I would dream about Jiraiya too, since he meant something similar to me as Obito does to you."

Kakashi nodded. "Well, not quite," the snake said. He brushed some of his hair out of his face, giving Kakashi time to grow curious. "He is never there. Sometimes, I am trying to pursue him. I am usually aware of him, and think about him. But as far as I can remember, he never actually appears."

Kakashi thought over his own dreams. "For me, the odds are even as to whether Obito will appear or not. A lot of the time, I find evidence of his presence, but he's not there. Before I met him and saw that he was alive, I think my dreams were almost all of this type."

"I don't even get that much," Orochimaru said. "He's just gone missing on me. Or sometimes I've gone missing on him - I tend to be kidnapped a lot."

Kakashi blinked. _Kidnapped? Him? _"Really? That's a very strange kind of dream."

Orochimaru shook his head. "It's common to find yourself lost somewhere strange, I believe. And if it isn't, I do tend to capture and hold my containers for a long time before taking them."

_Literal kidnapping has nothing to do with dream kidnapping. Dreams always stand for something else. What does dream kidnapping stand for? _"I don't believe that either. But that's alright; go on."

"Sometimes I am deaf, or blind," Orochimaru recalled. "But I am never without my sense of smell. I tend to be younger than my current age. I am often in a familiar place, either a location I recognize from Konoha or someplace that feels familiar even if I can't place it. There is this one recurring series where I am tending to a garden, and every time I turn around something's gone missing. I try to drive out the deer or whatever is taking the crops, but to no avail. I've started to remember that this has happened before in my recent dreams, and being resigned to having to be in charge of a garden again. I never remember that those previous times were all dreams and this is one too."

"I keep having dreams where my ears are furry and I try to hide them," Kakashi replied. "Or I used to. I haven't had any for a while now."

Orochimaru glanced at him. "Does anyone ever notice or react?"

"No," Kakashi admitted. "It's the classic naked dream, translated into half-wolf."

Orochimaru nodded. Kakashi's ears pricked forward as something interesting occurred to him. "Mah, what does your garden grow?"

The snake narrowed his eyes. "That is a good question. I have no idea, Puppy."

"I've had dreams where someone was interfering with me and I was powerless before. I was very aware of what they were interfering with."

"All I remember is plants," Orochimaru countered. "Nothing else. In the dream, I'm more upset about the loss of my _garden_ than about any of the plants in it. The mere fact that they were growing there is what I try to defend."

"Oh…" Kakashi looked at him fondly. "A guarding dream? Maybe growing and nourishing something is important to you."

Orochimaru shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Have you ever had a garden in real life?"

Orochimaru shook his head again. "When the hell would I? In the middle of an experiment?"

"You should," Kakashi pressed. "Maybe it will change your dreams somehow."

The snake contemplated this. "I would like to be free of that frustration…"

Kakashi smiled. "It's settled, then. I'll get seeds, and we'll have to settle down in one location sooner or later to take care of our little brother. You can try to grow something then."

"Are you going to finish that?"

Kakashi looked down at the bird remains in his hands. "Of course. You caught it for me."

.

**A/N: ^.^**


End file.
